By Lim Sue Goan, Sin Chew Daily

Due to too many political considerations, the Perikatan Nasional government has been very indecisive. As a result, the nationwide lockdown has come far too late and members of the public as well as local businesses are forced to bear the grave consequences.

The coronavirus outbreak started to pick up steam from April. If a nationwide lockdown was enforced from May 1, we could have averted the many "Raya" clusters, with much fewer fatalities.

Enforcing a lockdown only after the situation has become so serious with huge numbers of new cases in the community will only incur a whole lot more time and resources. We may have to pay a very hefty price if we are unable to lift the lockdown within a month. Health DG Noor Hisham has estimated that we will take three to four months to flatten the infection curve.

Indeed, the government has thought of imposing a nationwide lockdown, but has hesitated owing to political factors.

On May 3, senior defense minister Ismail Sabri announced that six Selangor districts would go into MCO. On the following day, he announced that KL, Besut (Terengganu), Johor Bahru, Kulai, Kota Tinggi (Johor) and parts of Perak would also be put under MCO.

On May 21, PM Muhyiddin announced that the government would not impose a total lockdown having consulted representatives from the business sector, but would introduce stricter SOPs instead to restrict economic and social activities.

The following day, Ismail Sabri announced two restrictive strategies, namely to increase the number of people working from home and to limit the operating hours of businesses.

However, after the country recorded an all-time high of 8,290 new cases on May 28, the PM's office announced the same evening that the government would enforce a full lockdown from June 1 to 14.

Throughout the whole month of May, the PN government was struggling whether to lock down or not to lock down the country. Plenty of precious time was squandered.

Prior to this, the government was more inclined towards saving the livelihoods of the people such that it made many wrong decisions, only to realize that it had to renege on its earlier promise of not locking down the country after our healthcare system was pushed to the edge of collapse, with increasing numbers of new COVID-19 deaths, even though it means the government will have to fork out RM500 billion to bail out the economy in the event of a nationwide lockdown. The risk is simply too large to take now!

If our hospitals are no longer able to take in COVID-19 patients, more people will die and more families will be torn. The effects could be much worse than widespread joblessness and company closures. This is why the government has changed its stand.

Among the erroneous decisions made by the government include allowing government departments and the private sector to organize buka puasa events during Ramadan, allowing more than 100,000 university students to travel back to their hometowns to celebrate the festive season, and allowing Ramadan bazaars to operate, among others.

Due to lax control, some 200,000 people have traveled across state borders during the festive season on various excuses, such that we saw 26 new infection clusters related to Hari Raya celebration between May 13 and 28, involving 1,019 infection cases with a positivity rate of 25.1% from the screenings done.

1,223 people were killed by the virus from May 1 to 30, and this number could have been drastically reduced if not for the government's slow and erroneous decisions. Containing the more infective variants is much tougher now that the virus has spread far and wide throughout the country.

We cannot turn back time. What is important now is to do the right thing to stop the virus and enforce a total and thorough lockdown to break the infection chain. In the meantime, vaccination has to be expedited and more resources should be mobilized to assist the B40 as well as SMEs.

Many Malaysian SMEs have been badly hit by the different versions of MCOs imposed over the past one year, and the latest lockdown is poised to wipe out the remaining ones.

Malaysians have applied to withdraw some RM78 billion from their EPF savings through the i-Sinar and i-Lestari schemes. As many as 2.6 million EPF depositors have less than RM1,000 each in their Account 1 after the withdrawals. How are these people going to survive if their incomes are depleted during the nationwide lockdown?

Finance minister Tengku Zafrul has said that one million people could go out of work in the event of a total lockdown, while senior trade minister Azmin Ali says up to 2.8 million people may risk losing their jobs if the country is locked down.

If one million people were to lose their jobs, multiply that by four in a household, it means the livelihoods of some four million people will be adversely affected by the lockdown.

Muhyiddin has admitted that the government is to fork out more than RM600 billion under Budget 2021 and several relief schemes, but with the national coffers now drying up fast, how is the government going to come up with that money?

The country lost an average of RM2.4 billion each day during last year's MCO 1.0. Daily loss from phase 1 of the nationwide lockdown is estimated to be lighter, but the bleeding will worsen if the lockdown is prolonged.

Other than missing the initial growth target, the government will also see its tax revenue dwindling because of the lockdown. Efficient financial planning is of paramount importance to avert a more serious financial meltdown during such a crucial moment.

Due to earlier hesitation and indecision, the PN government now needs to weigh very much more prudently between saving lives and livelihoods. It must show its leadership and ability to enforce the laws efficiently so as to take the country out of the current doldrums.