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Congrats Backdoor Government – Malaysia Beats China In Covid-19 Cases, Lockdown Fails To Flatten The Curve



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Dec 17 2020
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Besides reporting the number of people arrested for flouting the movement control order (MCO) and broadcasting the number of Covid-19 new cases every day, as if they are reporting 4-D lucky numbers to punters, the backdoor government is clueless what to do next. It has been weeks since daily new cases stay above 4-digit – the highest recorded being 2,234 cases on 10 December.

 

On Wednesday (Dec 16), Malaysia finally beats China for the wrong reason. Nope, this is not the Thomas Cup or other international badminton tournaments where both countries were known as bitter rivals. It’s absolutely shameful Malaysia’s total Coronavirus cases have hit 87,913 since the pandemic first reported in January – more than China’s 86,770 cases.

 

Effectively, Malaysia is one spot above China at #79 in the world’s top-100 countries with the highest number of Covid-19 cases. In fact, Malaysia is ranked fourth in ASEAN, behind Myanmar (110,667 cases), Philippines (452,988) and Indonesia (636,154). It would be fun to see if the country could snatch the silver medal from Myanmar in a few more weeks.

Coronavirus - ASEAN Covid-19 - Total Cases vs Cases Per Million - Chart

Coronavirus - ASEAN Covid-19 - Total Deaths vs Deaths Per Million - Chart

Coronavirus - ASEAN Covid-19 - Total Tests vs Tests Per Million - Chart

With 429 Coronavirus deaths, Malaysia is also in fourth place in ASEAN, behind Myanmar (2,329 deaths), Philippines (8,833) and Indonesia (19,248). Singapore has the highest total cases per million simply because the country has conducted the most tests among its people in Southeast Asia. At 856,880 per million, Singapore has almost tested every single of its entire population.

 

Some may argue that it’s unfair to compare Malaysia with China because the data from the Chinese communist government is unreliable and cannot be trusted. However, the mainland China has a population of around 1.4 billion – more than 43 times of Malaysia’s 32 million people. Assuming Malaysia’s number is fair, proportionate, China should have 3.7 million cases.

 

So, does it make sense to say that China actually has 3.7 million Coronavirus cases? China sealed off Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people, on January 23. It took 76 days before the epicentre of Coronavirus reopened its borders in April. Since then, the country is back to normal. Like it or not, the communist country has defeated the virus as early as April.

Coronavirus - China Economic Growth Post Covid-19

To the sceptical, here’s the proof – some 637 million people (or 46% of China’s population) travelled around the country during the eight days (Oct 1-8) Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, known as the Golden Week. The retail and restaurant sales alone during the holiday reached 1.6 trillion Yuan (US$235.5 billion), with daily sales up 4.9% compared to last year’s seven-day holiday.

 

China’s success has been attributed to a number of factors. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO (World Health Organization), revealed that China’s success came from speed and from taking contract tracing seriously. He said – “The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be.”

 

When Wuhan was identified as the source of the outbreak, it was quickly isolated, with 11 million residents of the city spending 76 days in lockdown. In fact, between January and February, the Chinese government had confined 507.5 million people either in full or partial lockdown covering 20 provinces – more than the populations of the U.S.(327.2 million) and Russia (144.

Coronavirus - China Excavators Bulldozers - Build Hospital

Coronavirus - China Excavators Bulldozers - Build Hospital 2

The world was flabbergasted with news and photos of how excavators, trucks, bulldozers and hundreds of construction workers mobilized at unbelievable speed to build a hospital with 1,000 beds in just 6 days. In two weeks, two hospitals were up and running – with a capacity of 2,600 beds. Engineers were brought in from across the country in order to complete construction in time.

 

According to The Lancet medical journal, a whopping 14,000 health and temperature checkpoints were set up at most major transport hubs across China. Yes, the key to China’s success was its speed and commitment to testing. Not only getting a Coronavirus test was fast, but also free. Those who tested positive were immediately sent to isolation centers or nearby hospitals.

 

After Wuhan, the Chinese government takes new cases very seriously. For example, on October 9, after 12 new cases of Covid-19 were discovered in the eastern city of Qingdao, the authorities declared it would do a mass testing on its entire population of 9 million people in “five days” – about 1,800,000 residents per day. That’s about the entire population of the New York City.

Muhyiddin Yassin - Prime Minister Legitimacy In Question

Of course, we are not asking the Muhyiddin backdoor government to build a new hospital in Sabah in 6 days, despite flip-flops (admissions followed by denials) that Sabah hospital was full in October. We are also not hoping the Ministry of Health could do a mass testing on the country’s 32 million people, despite its empty promise as early as in April to do so on migrant population.

 

Yes, as early as April, celebrity Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said – “We are learning from Singapore, our migrant workers, we are embarking on a big scale screening of our migrant workers”. Yet, by November, it was still unclear if the government had conducted any mass testing on migrant workers, let alone certain regions in the “epicentre” Sabah.

 

It would take an outbreak in glove manufacturer Top Glove that the panicked health ministry was forced to do “targeted” mass testing of the company’s migrant workers. Even then, the 28 factories of Top Glove were closed in stages, despite 4-figure cases of Covid-19. That alone proved the government was never serious about flattening the Coronavirus curve.

Coronavirus - Top Glove Covid-19 Outbreak

Knowing the Malay Perikatan Nasional government can never be as fast, competent and committed as the Chinese communist government in combating the virus, the people were just asking for something very simple. The people were just asking the Muhyiddin backdoor government to be serious in enforcing its own SOPs (standard operating procedures) – quarantine.

 

Greedy politicians to snatch the state of Sabah aside, there was absolutely no action taken against politicians, campaign volunteers or supporters who had breached the health SOP (standard operating procedure) during the Sabah state election. The 14-day quarantine was abused, ignored and rubbished left, right and centre by the power-hungry PM Muhyiddin Yassin.

 

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham shamelessly justified that 14-day quarantine was not mandatory for Sabah arrivals in the Peninsular because not all arrivals returned from red zones. He would shift the goalposts to suit his corrupt and power-crazy political master. But facing the ordinary folks, he would warn them to follow the SOP to control the pandemic.

Dr Noor Hisham - Health Director-General

As a result of Dr Noor’s tolerance to double standard, the “Sabah Cluster” spread like wildfire to the rest of the nation since September. He closed one eye even after learning the prime minister had quietly granted permission to his Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister – Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali – to visit Turkey from July 3-7. Upon his return from Istanbul, he skipped the 14-day mandatory quarantine.

 

To make matters worse, the health director-general defended a suspicious move to stop sharing data with the Selangor Task  Force for Covid-19 (STFC) since the first week of October, which coincided with a surge in Coronavirus cases to 3-digit. Dr Noor claimed he would only share processed data (and not raw data) for better coordination.

 

Not only granular data (lowest detailed data) were being guarded with utmost secrecy and not to be shared, Noor Hisham also announced that his ministry would also stop disclosing the locations where Covid-19 had been detected. He argued that the decision was made to prevent people and places of infections from being stigmatised and thus cause panic.

Coronavirus - Malaysia People Wearing Mask

It is now beyond the control of the health ministry. Even former Prime Minister Najib Razak acknowledged that the government’s decision to allow domestic travel and ease Covid-19 restrictions in several states, despite reporting 4-digit new cases on a daily basis, is an admission of failure to contain the virus crisis. Any effort to break the chain of virus infections is no longer effective.

 

Unlike China who learned its lesson from Wuhan, Malaysia did not learn anything at all after the second wave was successfully contained using the Movement Control Order (MCO). Immediately after the second wave, the arrogant and power-hungry Muhyiddin went to grab Sabah, and the rest is history. The government, and the health ministry for that matter, is today powerless and does not care anymore.

 

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Comments

Congratulations, Malaysia can beat China in something.

Next, we can try civilisation!

Or at least, feeling superiority and crawling out of inability to feel shamelessness.

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