Media Statement by DAP MP for iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang on Thursday, 13th May 2021
Yesterday’s daily increase of 4,765 new Covid-19 cases and an all-time high of 39 deaths is latest proof that the emergency is a failure to bring the nine-month long third Covid-19 wave in Malaysia under control and that Malaysia is fighting a losing battle against Covid-19 pandemic with deadly variants.
It also validates the warning by the Indonesian government to Indonesians citing Malaysia in the same breath as India as countries which Indonesia should not emulate and to stay home and to take precautions on Covid-19 in the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.
Malaysia declared emergency on January 12 to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, which had on that day recorded a daily increase of 3,309 new Covid-19 cases, four deaths and a cumulative total of 141,533 cases.
Yesterday, there was a daily increase 4,765 new Covid-19 cases, 39 deaths and a cumulative total of 453,22 cases had been recorded.
If this is not a failure, I do not know what failure is!
Yet we have political leaders like the PAS President, Hadi Awang, who have come out to champion a failed emergency and even gone so far as to label the critics of the government’s poor performance in mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic as “disruptors”.
This is reminiscent of Hadi’s recent statement which likened those who oppose the emergency as “political extremists worse than religious extremists that had detonated bombs and killed their victims in smaller numbers as compared to the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic which had now spread across the world”.
It is time that all political leaders including Hadi come to their senses and accept that the millions of Malaysians who condemn or dissociate themselves from the government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic are not “disruptors” or “enemies of Malaysia” but patriotic Malaysians who want the ravages and destruction to life and livelihoods by the Covid-19 pandemic to end immediately so that life can return to normal like before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whether they are Ramadan bazaar operators, SME owners and their workers, or ordinary Malaysians, they are decent, peace-loving Malaysians and not bombers, assassins, killers who having blood on their hands for being responsible for the 1,761 Covid-19 fatalities in Malaysia or the more than 3.43 million Covid-19 fatalities in the world.
It is irresponsible politicians like former United President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and their local counterparts who have blood on their hands for failing to adopt competent, efficient, effective and sensitive measures to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control.
There are at least three reasons why Indonesia can cite Malaysia as a country to avoid the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic:
1. Malaysia has a higher “Cases per 1 million” index than Indonesia – Indonesia 6,262 to Malaysia’s 13,551.
2. Indonesia has been quite successful in bring the first Covid-19 wave under control, from the peak of daily increase of 14,518 new Covid-19 cases on January 30 to 4,608 cases yesterday; while Malaysia’s 4,765 daily increase of new Covid-19 cases yesterday is the highest recorded in over three months and the third highest recorded daily increase – less than 1,000 cases than the peak reached on January 30 with 5,728 cases.
3. In Indonesia, 3.3% of the population have been fully vaccinated, while 5.1% of the population had been given one dose while in Malaysia, only 2.2% of the population had been fully vaccinated while 3.6 % of the population had been given one dose.
When will Malaysia wake up?
At yesterday’s rate of daily increase, by June 7- the Yang di Pertuan Agong’s birthday and end of the MCO 3.0 – Malaysia would have worsened from the present ranking of No. 42 to No. 39 among nations in the world with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases, overtaking Morocco, Lebanon and UAE although we will be overtaken by Nepal which is presently experiencing sky-rocketting daily increases of over 9,000 cases.
It is time for all political leaders including Hadi to come to their senses and to focus on a national mobilisation against Covid-19 pandemic, through a “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach, instead of peddling lies and falsehood to liken critics of the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic as “disruptors”, “killers” or “assassins”!
