Sin Chew Daily

Prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has announced a nationwide MCO from May 12 to June 7 because the COVID-19 situation in the country now is almost out of control.

It doesn't really matter now whether this is MCO 3.0 or 4.0. The country has reported a total of 23,.852 new cases over the past six days at a daily average of 3,975 cases.

By comparison, for the past 470 days since the first confirmed case was reported here on January 25 last year, the daily average was only 946.

The first week of May also saw 136 COVID-related deaths at a daily average of 19.4, while the daily average for the past 470 days was only 3.6.

Meanwhile, the number of patients undergoing treatment at ICUs or requiring ventilators has reached a record of 658.

The number of active cases stood at 39,096 on May 10, and new infection clusters have been reported on a daily basis all across the country, at workplaces, community, worshiping houses and educational institutions.

All the figures above prove that the virus has spread far and wide in the country, and the implementation of MCO in hope of controlling human traffic flow is therefore an essential measure aimed at containing the spread of the virus.

However, if Malaysians do not change their habits or attitudes, MCO will only make the numbers look a little better momentarily, and things will be back to square one soon afterward, as we look to life under another round of MCO.

The most effective measures we can adopt right now to contain the spread of the virus are strict compliance with the SOPs, widespread screening, expediting immunization program and stronger defense line on the part of the country's healthcare system. We can't expect ourselves to defeat the virus if we backslide in any of the above.

We have been sticking to the SOPs for over a year now and there is no excuse that anyone should argue that he or she has no idea what to do and what not to do. Put on your face mask, sanitize your hands regularly, take your body temperature, maintain safe social distances, avoid crowded places, strictly adhere to quarantine orders, and don't forget about anything that comes into contact with you, including the banknotes which could be virus carriers.

Widespread screening was practiced in many countries during the early stage of the pandemic last year, including Germany. This is a good move, as it will at least help identify the carriers so that we can put them under quarantine. Unfortunately after the vaccine rollout, screening is conducted only on high-risk close contacts.

As for the national immunization program, the progress at this moment could only be described as "extremely pathetic". Only 680,000 people have received two vaccine shots as of May 10, at 2.6% of the target needed to achieve herd immunity, while 1.78 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine at 6.8%, far behind our Asean neighbors such as Singapore (38.8%), Cambodia (13.8%) and Indonesia (8.1%).

If we were to achieve the goal of herd immunity by next February as minister Khairy Jamaluddin has envisioned, we will have to administer at least five million doses each month from now on. Nevertheless, after 74 days since the immunization program was kicked off, we have only administered 1.78 million doses at an average of 24,121 doses a day.

Looking at the vaccine import volume announced by Khairy, all we can say is that the prospect is very bleak. Perhaps the minister should have more proactively sought new sources of vaccines. Global vaccine shortage? I thought we all knew that long ago?

Beating the virus requires collective effort from everyone. If our decision-makers and people in the street keep finding excuses for their irresponsible acts, not even more MCOs will solve our plight because MCO is not a panacea to stop the virus.