By Chong Lip Teck, Sin Chew Daily

MCO 3.0 is being implemented in several areas in the country due to the deteriorating COVID-19 outbreak. As soon as the new SOPs are unveiled, many people would assert, as they usually do, that MCO 3.0 is going to fail. A friend has even offered MCO a new definition on Facebook: Menteri Cincai Order.

"I have to admit that MCO 2.0 has failed. This can be proven with the rising R-0 and daily new infection numbers," public health expert Dr Hanafiah has told Sin Chew Daily in an interview.

He said MCO 2.0 failed because of several reasons, including opening of social activities and educational institutions while the number of new cases was still rising. Even members of the public and medical frontliners are confused about the SOPs. The equally confusing MCO 3.0 will not make anyone any more optimistic that it can put the virus under effective control.

Dr Hanafiah is not alone. Medical frontliners, patients struggling and fighting for life on hospital beds are also under tremendous psychological and mental stress. They all need some space to breathe.

Is that a kind of punishment for these people? In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was punished with rolling an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, over and again. This picture reflects what we are going through right now in our fight against the heinous coronavirus.

Fighting the virus shouldn't be a kind of punishment. Rolling the boulder up the hill (battling the virus) is our goal. It's for the safety of ourselves and the society at large. We need to work very much harder to free ourselves from the predicament by rolling the boulder up the hill with concerted effort, and try not to let it roll down again and kill more innocent people and create more havoc.

Why have we made very minimal progress in our battle against the virus?

Menteri Cincai Order is one of the reasons, while public exhaustion from over a year of fights and lockdowns is another.

The war can only be won with concerted effort from all. Our problem now is: this Menteri Cincai Order has now evolved into a bigger Malaysia Cincai Order!

Ministers and politicians have been trifling with the rules for their own political interests. Lack of actions against VIPs flouting the SOPs and selective enforcement will only encourage complacency among the enforcers, from top down, thinking that there's no big deal about it.

But it is a really big deal now!

Some say we cannot count on the government alone to win the war against the virus, as self-discipline is of utmost importance. Very true, but as as we are disciplining ourselves, we must also not neglect that we have an obligation to oversee the government and highlight the many irregularities with the SOPs. If the government becomes complacent,it is the rakyat and the entire nation that will eventually suffer.

We need to work together in unison to stop the virus, as pointed out in a letter to the media from retired doctor Dato' Dr Amar-Singh HSS (https://www.sinchew.com.my/content/content_2474373.html). He said there was room for improvement in screening individuals, contact tracing, drawing up SOPs, implementing the immunization program, communicating with the public on the side effects of vaccines, as well as the emergency measures to tackle the mutant variants.

"If the MOH is short on resources, tell the public," he said.

Indeed, in fighting the virus including tackling major day-to-day issues of the people and emergency incidents, we cannot afford to be intransparent. Members of the public must be adequately informed and prepared for any untoward incident. And improved transparency will help boost public confidence towards the government.

Currently there is a very obvious dearth of confidence among the public in the government, especially in view of the fact that many VIPs have failed to set a good example by dutifully adhering to the government SOPs. The ubiquitous double standards in law enforcement has affected the people's willingness to abide by the rules. If even the VIPs have failed to comply with the SOPs, then the government should not put the blame on the rakyat when the situation worsens.

The government cannot issue directives to the people in the absence of adequate transparency and external supervision. They think they know best, and have drawn up the SOPs that will be enforced on all of us except themselves.

If the people see that VIPs join in the effort to stop the virus, sure enough they will be willing to get involved too, by working wholeheartedly with the government to battle the virus in hope of achieving the best results within the shortest time possible.

Malaysians have become so sick of some of the ministers who only make inappropriate comments but have not put in much effort to fight the virus. As if that is not enough they also create trouble for the ministers and technocrats who actually work very hard to stop the virus. We are already under tremendous pressure to make ends meet and we do not want to hear more of the nonsensical remarks of some of these minsters.

As a matter of fact, the government does have a set of good and effective measures to deal with the pandemic, including the HIDE (Hotspots Identification for Dynamic Engagement) system set up by CPRC (Crisis Preparedness And Response Center) with the use of big data analysis and artificial intelligence. This is a forewarning system that identifies possible COVID-19 hot spots and takes the necessary preventive measures to prevent a new infection cluster. Yesterday, the HIDE system listed a total of 151 high risk areas in the country.

Science, technology and innovation minister Khairy Jamaluddin has said the list is to help people get adequately prepared and make a wise deicision before visiting specific places or shops in a id to avert the risk of being infected.

I believe that with HIDE, Malaysians will cooperate and take care of their own safety. The question is: will our VIPs cooperate, too?

We cannot afford to fight the war any longer. Our economy and the livelihoods of countless of Malaysians are struggling. We do not want to be another Sisyphus, doing the whole thing over and again in vain until eternity.