Malaysia has been in total lockdown for nearly 60 days, yet Covid-19 infections and casualties are now higher than ever!

DAP Member of Parliament (MP) for Damansara, Tony Pua has today called for the resignation of Dato’ Sri Dr Adham Baba as Health Minister following the disastrous escalation of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia. Today, our country recorded a staggering 11,618 new daily infections which shattered the previous highest of 11,079 daily cases from a mere 24 hours ago.

Clearly, Adham Baba and the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government have been a catastrophic failure in handling the Covid-19 pandemic. Worse, the rise in infections is almost 3 times more than the cases recorded prior to PN announcing a nationwide lockdown. This means that the sacrifice by the rakyat who have lost their livelihoods because of the lockdown have been in vain.

In a statement released today, Tony lambasted Adham Baba and PN’s failures, saying,

“For more than 8 weeks the people have suffered in silence, losing income and livelihood hoping to return to some form of normalcy as quickly as possible.“

“However, Dr Adham Baba and the PN government have completely wasted the sacrifice of the people because they have failed to play their role to contain the spread of the virus to complement the people’s sacrifice during the lockdown.”

Tony further criticised Adham Baba for resting on his laurels and acting as if the Covid-19 virus would just magically disappear once the lockdown is put in place. Without a doubt, this incompetent Health Minister must take responsibility for the disastrous escalation of cases by resigning from his post.

While the 5-digit number of daily infections is in itself distressing, the real Covid-19 situation in Malaysia is actually much worse. In his statement, Tony clarified that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has conducted declining number of Covid-19 tests despite high and rising percentage positive rates of those who were tested.

The chart above is complied with data from MOH and it clearly shows that the weekly test positivity rate in cases remained elevated throughout the Movement Control Order (MCO) period. Out of this period, the lowest rate was 6.61% and was recorded in the week of 6-12 June 2021.

That lowest point of 6.61% itself is too high based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations. The global organisation has previously said that any positivity rates above 5% is too high and actions must be taken before any re-opening of the economic and social sectors are recommended.

Tony then stressed that we must increase the number of tests to track Covid-19 positive cases in order to isolate and reduce transmission. However, Adham Baba did the exact opposite and substantially reduced the number of tests instead.

Tony, who is also DAP’s National Publicity Secretary elaborated,

“The total number of cases tested declined consistently from average daily samples of 109,601 in the week of 23 – 29 May to 72,308 cases (20 – 26 June), a massive drop of 34%! 

This was despite repeated calls by Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders, think tanks and the civil society imploring the Ministry to carry out more tests.”

The Damansara MP further clarified that MOH only gradually boosted its average weekly test samples over the last two weeks. However, the 87,457 average daily samples during this perod is still far below the testing carried out in May. More shocking is the revelation that yesterday’s 11,079 new infections was from a sample of 116,869, making the positivity rate extremely high at 9.48%!

Therefore, Adham Baba must take full responsibility for failing to have any strategic urgency to boost number of tests carried out. Furthermore, the aggravation of Covid-19 spread during MCO 3.0 and FMCO under Adham Baba more than warrants for his removal as Health Minister.

Tony iterated,

“His (Adham Baba) incompetence has caused billions of ringgit of losses, immeasurable pain and hardship to ordinary Malaysians struggling to make a living during the pandemic.”

“If he fails to resign, it is imperative for the Perikatan Nasional government to sack the most incompetent Health Minister we have ever had in the history of Malaysia.”

Enough is enough. It is time for Adham Baba to own up to his failures and resign as Health Minister before our Covid-19 situation escalates to the point of no return. – The Rocket.