By Lim Sue Goan, Sin Chew Daily

Senior defense minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob recently announced an enhanced version of MCO 3.0 with the hope the two restrictive strategies will help the country flatten the COVID-19 infection curve within two weeks.

He has been unrealistically optimistic.

Indeed we can reduce some human traffic flow by increasing the number of people working from home and limiting the operating hours of businesses, but the effects have yet to be proven.

For instance, if 80% of civil servants or almost 750,000 of them, plus 40% of private sector employees or 6.1 million people all work from home, human contacts can be effectively reduced, but how are we going to make sure that these seven million people will not venture out of their homes during lunch break or after work?

Will long queues of people form in front of government service counters due to fewer people at work, thus heightening the risk of crowd gathering?

The business hours of shopping malls will be changed from 10-10 to 8-8, but still 12 hours. Will people throng into malls before they close at eight?

The domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry has set the rule that customers can only stay not more than two hours at a retail shop or mall, while limiting the number of customers allowed inside a shop based on size, i.e. one customer for every 4 square meters. In addition, mall operators have the right to inspect the customer's MySejahtera app to make sure they don't overstay. What if a customer leaves after two hours and come in again afterward? With tens of thousands of shops and restaurants across the country, will the ministry's 2,262 enforcement officers be able to conduct thorough checks to ensure full compliance?

Besides, with 60% of the infection clusters coming from factories and construction sites, the enhanced MCO 3.0 should step up surveillance on such sectors, including foreign worker hostels. There is always risk of infection whenever an employee goes out to work at the factory, especially in view of the more infective variants. As such, new workplace SOPs must be drawn up.

If we really want to minimize infection risks, the number of passengers inside a vehicle must be restricted, while all indoor activities involving the removal of face masks banned, and the operation of businesses involving human contacts suspended.

MKN must consult the views of medical and scientific experts in drawing up more effective SOPs to effectively break the infection chain. Otherwise no enhanced MCO will help curtail the spread of the virus.

As a matter of fact, there have been signs the Perikatan Nasional government will not impose another full lockdown like MCO 1.0. Finance minister Tengku Zafrul assured Malaysians in January that the country would not impose another lockdown no matter how bad it gets. As such, the government will not enforce a complete lockdown even though daily infection numbers soar above 10k because there is a very hefty political price to pay.

How is PN going to win the election if unemployment rate soars and many in the B40 group have to go without food?

PN ministers have painted a sinister picture of another lockdown. Ismail Sabri has said lately that some household only had plain rice with salt for food during last year's MCO, while Tengku Zafrul says one million people could lose their jobs in the event of another lockdown, and that as many as 2.6 million EPF contributors have less than RM1,000 in their first account.

Meanwhile, PM Muhyiddin Yassin says the government may need another RM500 billion to help the people and revive the economy. The PN government simply cannot afford to take the risk.

Now that a complete lockdown is out of question, the PN government urges the public to exercise self discipline to help contain the virus.

Health DG Noor Hisham Abdullah has asked Malaysians to conduct "self lockdown". That said, the public will only cooperate if the government has displayed strong leadership with effective anti-virus plans to win the trust of the people. Frequent SOP violation by VIPs proves that self discipline is much easier said than done.

If the enhanced version of MCO 3.0 works, and we can sustain until the end of the year when herd immunity is supposed to be achieved, then the people's livelihoods as well as the PN government can be saved. But if the vaccination progress remains sluggish and illegal migrant workers in hiding are not vaccinated, sparking an exlosive growth of infections, then it's game over for the PN government.

So far the PN government has already been tagged by many as a "failed government" (kerajaan gagal). Former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad has highlighted, quoting statistics, that Malaysia's COVID-19 incidence rate has soared past badly hit countries like India and the United States to be among the top in the world. How are we going to lure investors and restore the country's economy if the PN government is unable to clear the country's name before the year ends?

The government should not overlook this crisis, and its most pressing task now is to seek the advice of medical experts to help tame this powerful virus.