New Deputy Prime Minister, same #KerajaanGagal

Amidst an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases in our country that sees no sign of slowing down, Prime Minister Mahiaddin Yassin today released a ‘massive’ official statement. Just mere hours after the Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed that Malaysia recorded its 8th straight day with over 6,000 daily Covid-19 cases, Mahiaddin announced that his Cabinet – the largest Cabinet in Malaysian history – gets even more bloated with the appointment of Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri as Deputy Prime Minister. Furthermore, Dato’ Sri Hishamuddin Hussein has also been promoted to a Senior Minister role.

The statement by Mahiaddin is definitely not something the rakyat wanted as it bares no significance to the war our nation is waging against the Covid-19 pandemic. Just today, 7,097 new daily cases have been reported; the second day in a row with over 7,000 infections. This is despite PN enforcing a nationwide ‘total lockdown’ for more than a month and even Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) in most of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

Instead, what the rakyat want is a new, more effective Covid-19 strategy given how PN’s current one is clearly failing. In a statement on 28 June 2021, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Iskandar Puteri, Lim Kit Siang stressed that the rakyat are now restless and have been asking as to how scientific and data-driven are the thresholds that have been set by PN for the National Recovery Plan to move from one phase to the other.

Furthermore, given that more than 28 days have passed since the enforcement of total lockdown, Covid-19 cases in our country should have subsided significantly. Unfortunately, PN’s total lockdown has had the complete opposite outcome with cases peaking over the last week or so.

The DAP veteran asserted,

“It is time that both the Executive and the Legislature should set up a mechanism to craft a successful Covid-19 strategy to win the war against the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Kit Siang then suggested for the new Covid-19 strategy to be based on co-existence with the virus and referenced the comments made by activist Dr Mohamad Rafick Khan. Rafick has recently commented in his blog for the following measures to be taken by the government:

• Changing the Covid-19 strategy towards co-existing with the virus and accept that having zero infection is simply not feasible.
• Instead of reporting from the perspectives of ‘daily new cases’ or ‘total active case, use a 3-class concept (Class A: stage 1 & 2; Class B: stage 3 & 4 and Class C – stage 5 and Death related to Covid-19).
• The outcome-based classification will tell the rakyat the severity of infection and allow the planning on the usage of hospitalisation resources.
• Enhancing risk-based identification and containment measure based on activities and location using medical knowledge and science.

The Iskandar Puteri MP then iterated,

“The Federal Government should also give a commitment of fair vaccine distribution to all sates, the involvement of all General Practitioners in the national vaccination rollout and allow doctors to use whatever is safe to treat patients like all the therapeutics.”

Meanwhile, the MP for Kluang, Wong Shu Qi also concurred with Kit Siang and iterated that the measures taken by PN has failed to curb the spread of Covid-19 despite total lockdown being enforced for more than a month now. Following the appointment of both Ismail Sabri and Hishammuddin Hussein, Shu Qi urged for PN to now focus on the war against Covid-19 and stop politicking.

Furthermore, following the ongoing rift between UMNO and Bersatu within the PN government, Shu Qi also hoped that UMNO leaders would no longer blame others for PN’s failure as if they themselves are not part of this #KerajaanGagal.

So, now that PN has given Malaysians a new Deputy Prime Minister, when will they give us a new, more effective strategy against Covid-19? – The Rocket.