Malaysia must be better prepared for future pandemics — the reason why there should be an inquiry why Malaysia was so unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and to learn the expensive lessons of the Covid-19 epidemic

After two days of daily three-digit new Covid-19 cases, Malaysia has reverted to a daily four-digit new Covid-19 cases yesterday, although it was the lowest four-digit daily new Covid-19 cases in history.

The daily new Covid-19 cases and daily new deaths for the past week were:

The former Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar had done a fairly good job as Health Minister reducing the Covid-19 statistics from 20,897 daily new cases and 282 daily new deaths on August 31, 2021 to 2,340 daily new cases to single-digit daily new deaths on August 31, 2022.

Lets hope that under the new Health Minister, Dr. Zaliha Mustafa, on the National Day in some eight months’ time, the daily new Covid-19 cases can come down to double-digit numbers while keeping the daily new Covid-19 deaths to low single-digit numbers.

It is most shocking that during the 15th General Election campaign, the Perikatan Nasional Chairman Muhyiddin Yassin and the first “backdoor” Prime Minister could claim that his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was to his credit and that only a few Malaysians died during the pandemic.

On the 63rd National Day on 31st August 2020, we had a cumulative total of 9,340 Covid-19 cases and 127 Covid-19 deaths.

On 64th National Day on 31st August 2021, we had close to 1.75 million Covid-19 cases and 16,500 Covid-19 deaths — a phenomenal increase of 187 times for Covid-19 cases and another phenomenal increase of 130 times for Covid-19 deaths.

Is this the credit that the first “backdoor” Prime Minister was claiming?

On the 65th National Day on 31st August 2022, the total number of Covid-19 cases had gone up to 4,782,624 cases and a total number of 36,225 deaths.

Khairy did a good job in reducing the daily cases of Covid-19 in 12 months from 20,897 cases on August 31, 2021 to 2,340 on August 31, 2022.

A look at the Covid-19 statistics of the other ASEAN nations will show there is a need for a study to understand why we have done so poorly in our response to the Covid-19 pandemic as to be better prepared for other pandemic that may afflict the globe in the future.

In terms of total Covid-19 cases, Malaysia is ranked No. 27th in the world while the other ASEAN nations are ranked Indonesia (20), Philippines (37), Thailand (31), and Singapore (45), with the following statistics yesterday:

Malaysia must be better prepared for future pandemics.

There should be an inquiry why Malaysia was so unprepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and learn the expensive lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic.