Someone should congratulate the power-hungry Muhyiddin regime for breaking another new Covid record today – 6,806 cases and 59 deaths – after yesterday’s 6,075 infections. Thanks to his coup to seize power, leading to the Sabah state election last September, the third wave of Coronavirus pandemic is still spreading like wildfire with the possibility of hitting 10,000 daily infections.

 

Journalists should interview the backdoor prime minister and ask if he would have done differently had he knew his lust for power would end up killing 2,099 people and infecting 492,302 (as of today, 20 May). Heck, there were a jaw-dropping 528 active clusters with 587 patients in ICU (a jump from 516 active clusters and 559 ICU patients yesterday), and not a single green zone in Peninsula Malaysia.

 

Obviously, the record number of new cases was closely linked to the increase of testing. Since the Coronavirus outbreak last year, yesterday was the first time the testing hit six figures. For close to a year, despite promises to do mass testing, nothing was being done – until recently. The government only passively increased the Covid testing after the pandemic got out of control.

Controlling the number of testing is one of many unprofessional, pathetic and foolish methods to artificially suppress the real infections to paint a rosy picture of the clueless, useless and incompetent government. You can hide the numbers for only so long. Eventually, the pandemic will explode beyond control and rear its ugly head, as can be seen now.

 

Some experts said yesterday’s extraordinary high cases of Covid-19 could mean the country has reached its peak. But how do you know it was the peak, unless you manipulate and fake the data? Even though it’s easier to predict than the stock market, chances are high that the worst has only just begun. Like it or not, the 6,075 (yesterday) and 6,806 (today) new cases were self-inflicted.

 

Arguably, the spike in new infections was contributed by the Ramadan bazaars, which were allowed by the Perikatan Nasional government in its attempt to please the Malay community, after such event was disallowed last year. Disturbingly, there were some clusters caused by religious events, bringing back the bad memory of clusters linked to a religious “Tabligh” gathering last year.

It’s very sensitive, but it speaks volumes about the lethality of this wave (that’s why we prefer to call this the fourth wave instead of third) when mosques have been fined for breaching standard operating procedures (SOP). People have been flocking to the mosques as if the pandemic was over, breaching the SOP at the same time, while authorities refused to take any actions for obvious reason.

 

And we have not even talked about the traditional “balik kampung” exodus for Hari Raya Aidilfitri, which could explode in the coming weeks. Thanks to the genius government, an estimated 103,994 university students were allowed to travel interstate from May 7 to May 12. Heck, what we are seeing now could be the eruptions of both Ramadan bazaar and balik kampung infections at the same time.

 

But there’s another potential cluster that the government may have overlooked. Yesterday, the Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd proudly announced a total of 2 million passengers recorded for the month of April. Despite continued interstate and international border closures, somehow 548,000 international and 1.4 million domestic passengers were allowed to depart or arrive last month.

Do you know that in less than 2 weeks, Singapore’s Changi Airport has suddenly emerged as the country’s largest cluster since the outbreak in the worker dormitories – with 78 Covid-19 cases and up to four generations linked to it (as of two days ago)? Even an 88-year-old cleaner at the airport, despite being fully vaccinated, has been tested positive.

 

The Changi Airport cluster suggests that variants such as the Indian “double mutant” – also known as B.1.617 – had already landed and evaded immigration without being detected. The Singapore Ministry of Health has identified at least 17 unlinked cases of Covid-19 that belonged to the B.1.617 strain. So, what are the chances that Malaysia Airport is luckier than Changi?

 

It was already bad that the Perikatan Nasional government had failed to control the Ramadan bazaars and the crowd turning up for Covid vaccination. With 548,000 international passengers entering Malaysian airports in April alone, what are the chances that not a single virus of the Indian variant has managed to breach the local scanning and monitoring?

Two days ago (18 May), Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah, in expressing his concern over the emergence of new Variants of Concern (VOC) that not only spread more rapidly, but also contributes to high fatality rates, has admitted the presence of the South African variant (B.1.351), the United Kingdom variant (B.117) and the Indian variant (B.1.617.1) in the country.

 

The fact that there have been 66 Covid-19 cases infected with the South African variant and 5 cases contracted with the Indian strain (including sub-lineage B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2) show that Malaysian airports had long been breached. Worse, Dr Noor revealed that the mandatory quarantine period for travellers from countries with VOC transmission has been extended to 14 days only since April 28.

 

It means most of the 548,000 international passengers who arrived in the month of April had escaped the 14 days quarantine rules and could potentially spread the South African, the UK or the Indian variants in the country. To add salt to injury, the government has barred non-Malaysian travellers from India to enter the country only since May 7.

The burning question is this – is the current explosive outbreak made of a magic potion with three lethal doses comprising Ramadan bazaar, “balik kampung”, and Airport Cluster? And how could the general public – who are already sick and tired of SOP flip-flops, policy U-turns, double standards enforcement – believe that there were less than 100 cases caused by the VOC infections?

 

There is a serious deficiency of transparency under the current backdoor government, especially since the first week of October 2020, when the Ministry of Health decided to stop data-sharing with the Selangor Task  Force for Covid-19 (STFC) at a critical time when cases in Selangor were rising. Defending the bizarre move, Dr Noor also announced that his ministry would stop disclosing the locations of Covid-19 being detected.

 

Besides a full-blown – not half-baked – lockdown and an overdue mass testing, the regime has to start thinking of new strategies. While it’s understandable that corrupt ministers need to milk the “once in a century” opportunity, this is not the time to deliberately delay the vaccination program to suit their selfish agendas. Go find some other projects for kickbacks or corruptions.

If the clueless government has no idea, they can learn from Singapore, China or the UK. If the incompetent regime could not expedite the vaccination, allow eager state governments or private entities to help. It’s insane to depend entirely on Pharmaniaga, who is not only the sole concessionaire holder, but also acts as a middleman of drugs and medical supply to public hospitals in the country.

 

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin should not only be transparent about the status of vaccine inventory, but must also reveal how he actually plans to vaccinate the country’s population of 33 million to achieve herd immunity. The backdoor government has already put their hands in the cookie jar, taking more money than needed to procure Covid vaccines.

 

At the very least, Khairy should convince the public that he was not talking cock when he kept insisting that the country can reach herd immunity by this year end. Based on the remaining 225 days of the year and 1,412,751 people (19 May) who had received at least 1 dose, the required vaccination rate is 113,721 jabs every day for the rest of the remaining days in 2021.

Even then, it’s only one dose for about 27 million people (80% of the population to achieve herd immunity). For the second doses, the vaccination rate will be 116,040 jabs every day for the next 225 days (only 890,829 people received full vaccination of 2 doses as of 19 May). Essentially, for 27 million people get two doses in 225 days, the rate is 229,761 jabs every day – starting tomorrow!

 

Hilariously, arrogant Vaccine Minister Khairy also said three days ago that there will be a delay in his initial June projection for the mass supply of vaccines. First, the government had taken RM3 billion from Budget 2021. Then the regime took another RM5 billion from the National Trust Fund without any approval. And now, there’s a delay to July for the supply, but the money has vanished.

 

With a delay of one month, it means the new vaccination rate will be increased to 265,108 jabs every day. Can the incompetent government really vaccinate 265,108 people daily? Perhaps it should take a page from the United Kingdom’s playbook – delays the second dose of the Covid vaccine by up to 12 weeks (3 months) to prioritise first jabs to as many people as possible.

 

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• Taliban Hadi Should Learn This – How UK Says Goodbye To Lockdown After Covid Cases Drop From 70,000 to 2,000
• Congrats Muhyiddin – Angry Malay Voters Want To Teach The Government A Lesson At The 15th General Election
• Health DG Noor Hisham Should Take Responsibility – Stop Blaming The People For The Skyrocketing Covid-19 Cases
• MCO 3.0 Lockdown On The Cards – After School & Ramadan Bazaar Clusters, Get Ready For “Balik Kampung” Cluster
• Malays’ Anger Against Clueless & Incompetent Muhyiddin Government Has Now Spread To The Royal House
• The Worst Is Yet To Come – Muhyiddin’s Mishandling Of Covid-19 & Mismanagement Of Economy Is Worse Than Trump
• Emergency Rule Gimmick Exposed – Stocks Plunge, MCO To End, Patients To Pay Own Bills At Private Hospitals
• Blood On Incompetent Muhyiddin Regime’s Hands – Doctors May Have To Decide Who Can Live And Who Dies
• MCO 2.0 Lockdown Declared – But New SOPs Are Not Ready And Arrogant Ministers Are Happily Spreading Covid-19
• New Wave!! – Power Hungry Muhyiddin Is Responsible For The Spread Of Covid-19 From Sabah To The Entire Country

Tweet

May 20th, 2021 by financetwitter

If you enjoyed this post, what shall you do next? Consider: