Sin Chew Daily

A research team led by China's Zhong Nanshan estimated on November 28 last year based on the scientific prediction system of the coronavirus that the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Malaysia would reach 180,000 by January 25.

Back then many were skeptical about the projection, but today, with only five days left before January 25, we have already reported 169,379 positive cases, and may need only about three days to breach that mark. 

Zhong is no fortune-teller. There is only one way to explain his accurate prediction made some 52 days ago : We have failed in our strategy against the virus and have not been able to deploy a more effective approach to tackle the pandemic over the past 52 days.

If we had done better than what we did, the trend in daily new infection numbers would have deflected from Zhong's earlier prediction. But unfortunately, this is not the case!

With the only exception of Sarawak, the government has announced that MCO would be enforced in all other states and federal territories in Malaysia simply because things have gone out of control now.

We have seen 40 straight days of four-digit daily new increases. No improvement has been achieved since the start of MCO 2.0 for the so-called "red states" on January 13, with over 3,000 new cases reported for several days in a row.

Health DG Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the daily new increases would top 5,000 come the third week of February based on the current development trend, risinbg further to over 8,000 cases a day by the third week of March!

If unfortunately Dr Noor Hisham's prediction is accurate again, this will mean a complete failure in our existing virus-fighting strategy because all our SOPs, MCO, participation of private hospitals in COVID-19 treatment, upgraded medical facilities at modular hospitals and other initiatives have failed to put the virus in check, rendering the trend of virus spread easily predictable.

Dr Noor Hisham should know very well why things have gone out of hand. That's why he said the government would need to monitor the situation over the next few days to decide whether to extend the MCO.

Perhaps you might ask why the situation has actually got worse after the MCO was implemented.

There are three ways to explain this phenomenon.

Firstly, it will take about two weeks for a patient to present zero symptom to being diagnosed with COVID-19. We will only see the effectiveness of MCO after two weeks.

Secondly, the severity that we see today has been the consequence of our pre-MCO laxity.

Thirdly, the more we screen, the more confirmed cases we'll get. We have to exercise additional caution to prevent ourselves from contracting the virus, or spreading it to other people.

Civic awareness among Malaysians over the past one year has been uneven and this has nothing to do with an individual's social status, academic qualifications, wealth, ethnicity, religion or age.

There are many who openly defy the SOPs, including politicians fighting for more power, ministers not putting on masks during meetings, massive crowd of people grabbing free frozen chickens, dinner get-togethers of well-to-do families, alleged group gambling at modular hospital, etc.

Imagine the unbearable pressure placed upon the shoulders of those frontliners drawing meager salaries but exposing themselves to tremendous dangers fighting the virus. It is time we spare some thought for the rest of our community as we fight the heinous virus together

It looks like our only salvation now is the vaccine, but the progress of vaccine procurement by Khairy Jamaluddin has been pathetically slow. When the whole world is crazily grabbing whatever vaccine stock left in the market, our minister still proudly claims that we are well ahead of many regional countries in vaccine procurement, with only a couple of contracts with the manufacturers!

While our neighbor Philippines has been a slow starter by comparison, it has nevertheless secured deals with most vaccine manufacturers.

According to the minister, we will take 18 months to vaccinate some 83% of our population,

With leaders like that, we are not going to win this war anytime soon. As for the rakyat, we can only do our utmost to safeguard ourselves while patiently waiting for the vaccines.