Sin Chew Daily

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, senior adviser of Khazanah Research Institute, said the government does not have a strong will to bring together individuals from both sides of the political divide as well as the academic to discuss anti-Covid measures.

Jomo's views need to be taken seriously because for more than a year now, the government seems to have failed to mobilize all members of the society, including opposition representatives, to fight the coronavirus.

It is imperative that the government convene a "cross-industry" as soon as possible to draw up measures to fight the virus.

On January 12, His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong proclaimed the Emergency decree meant to mitigate the impact of the virus, but today, after exactly 100 days, because the parliament has been suspended, opposition lawmakers have been unable to forward their proposals and suggestions through the official channel. As such, the responsibility now lies exclusively with the Perikatan Nasional government.

Let's take a look at how the country has performed in its war against the virus over the past 100 days since Emergency was declared.

From January 25, 2020 when the first positive COVID-19 case was reported in the country, until January 11 this year, a total of 138,224 confirmed cases had been reported in 350 days, with a daily average of 395 cases.

And from January 12 until this Tuesday, as many as 241,249 cases had been reported in merely 100 days, with a daily average of 2,412 cases!

The above numbers prove that the average daily new infection cases since emergency has been 6.1 times higher than before that. The worsening situation serves to remind us that the emergency decree, along with the national immunization program rolled out in late February, are not sufficient to contain the spread of the virus, and the government needs to pool together the resources of the entire nation to combat the dreadful virus.

Sure enough we cannot put all the blame on the PN government. We simply cannot look to people like health DG Noor Hisham Abdullah, senior defense minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Khairy Jamaluddin and health minister Adham Baba alone to defeat the virus. In its stead, we should bring in more medical professionals and opposition lawmakers to join in the battle.

The Muhyiddin administration should convene a Covid-related cross-industry meeting as soon as possible covering not just SOP compliance but also vaccination program, interdepartmental cooperation, economic, tourist and education sectors as well. The scope involved is extremely wide and is beyond what PN government can accomplish on its own.

Since we first introduced the MCO and subsequently different stages of control orders, we can see clearly that the pandemic has given rise to a broad spectrum of tacky problems at various levels. The complete lockdown poilcy enforced in the very beginning with banning of international and interstate travels, halting of all economic activities, schools, etc has had a major bearing on the day-to-day lives of average Malaysians. In order to salvage the national economy and provide the much needed assistance to people affected by the pandemic, the government has so far injected RM300 billion of funds.

Shouldn't such measures be first discussed with professionals from various sectors in order to come up with the best solutions to address our problems?

And since the emergency decree has been proclaimed and no parliamentary sittings will be held during this period of time, we don't have to question the government's decision on this. However, we still remember when the prime minister declared the emergency, he said the government would convene cross-industry meetings but so far none has been held.

More than a hundred days now, it is time to call for one such forum in hope of coming up with more substantial long-term solutions to tackle the virus.