THERE is no cheer yet for Malaysians in the fight against Covid-19 as infections and deaths remain high, Lim Kit Siang said today in the run-up to Merdeka Day next week.

The DAP veteran said the national recovery plan (NRP) announced on June 15 has failed to steer the country out of the pandemic as cases and deaths have only gone up since then.

“We are supposed to move into phase three of NRP after National Day, fulfilling three conditions, namely fewer than 500 daily Covid-19 cases, sufficient availability of intensive care beds and 60% of the adult population vaccinated,” he said in a statement.

“Malaysia have never achieved the first condition of fewer than 4,000 daily cases. We have ranged from 5,150 daily cases on June 16 to 9,353 cases on July 7 and after that from July 13, we had five-digit cases, reaching a peak of 23,564 daily cases on August 20.”

The government had expected the whole country to move into phase four of NRP by the end of this month.

However, daily Covid-19 cases have averaged in the five figures since mid-June, logging 20,837 infections yesterday. There are now 262,713 active cases nationwide.

Intensive care unit (ICU) admissions remain high. Since July 25, there are more than 1,000 patients daily in the ICU. The death toll now stands at 14,553.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said despite the government’s dismal performance in containing the spread of the virus, it has done a relatively good job with the national immunisation programme.

“Only the vaccination rate in the NRP seems achievable for Labuan (92.4% fully vaccinated), Sarawak (85.4%), the Klang Valley (85.2%), Negri Sembilan (72.3%) and Perlis (62.4%), while the other states, the vaccination rate lagged far behind,” he said. These states are Penang (47.1%), Malacca (46.8%), Terengganu (42.7%), Perak (41.4%), Johor (38.8%), Kedah (38.3%), Kelantan (37.6%) and Sabah (31.4%), which require urgent acceleration of the vaccination programme.

To date, 58% (13,580,934) of the adult population have received their second dose while 79.6% (18,631,593) have been given their first jab.

Lim said given the worsening pandemic, the government, under the leadership of newly appointed Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, will have to come up with “all of government” and “whole of society” solutions.

“Ismail has come into office with the lowest public expectations, but I am prepared to suspend judgment to give him the opportunity to prove the pessimists wrong and that he could create the conditions to develop a national consensus on the challenges facing Malaysia in the next 12 to 18 months and unite all Malaysians into one ‘Malaysian family’,” he said.

“The first tests will come when Ismail announces his cabinet and his actions before the vote of confidence in Parliament next month.”

With less than a week to go for Malaysians to celebrate the 64th Merdeka Day, the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases are expected to breach the 1.6 million mark and close to 16,000 deaths.

Malaysia is also ranked 23 in the world among countries with the highest cumulative total of Covid-19 cases.

As of today, only Labuan has transitioned to phase four of NRP. Kedah, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Malacca and Johor are still in phase one.

Penang, Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Sabah and Negri Sembilan are in phase two while Perlis and Sarawak are in phase 3. – August 25, 2021.