YOUR report Perikatan’s one-year report card: achievements and failures duly acknowledges that the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government’s first year in power was a mixed bag of achievements and failures.

Reading through the media, there has been much highlighting of PN’s achievements. There is nothing wrong here, but there should not be fear of discussing failures. Facing up to shortcomings is usually more productive.

One notable failure is in controlling the spread of Covid-19. Make no mistake: the government’s containment measures through the movement control order (MCO) were successful in flattening the curve of infections in the early stages of the pandemic last year.

However, as duly alluded to by the report above, the turning point came with the Sabah elections in late September. The polls caused the increasing number of Sabah cases to spill over to Peninsular Malaysia.

If Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking (the ranking) is a measure of how the pandemic is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic disruption, then there is a lot of standing up to do. As of February 25, Malaysia is ranked at 23 among 53 countries with a resilience score of 54.2.

This is a drop of seven spots, which put the country as one of the notable movers – downward. According to the Ranking, Malaysia falls seven spots “amid a continued outbreak and as economists adjust its 2021 GDP outlook down by more than one percentage point to 5.5%, expecting a resurgence in unemployment.”

The Ranking made its debut in November 2020 and Bloomberg explains that the Ranking scores economies of more than US$200 billion (RM800 billion) on 11 core metrics: from growth in virus cases and the overall mortality rate to testing capabilities and vaccines.

The capacity of the local health-care system, the impact of virus-related restrictions like lockdowns on the economy, and freedom of movement are also taken into account.

Bloomberg explains further that success “in containing Covid-19 with the least disruption appears to rely less on being able to order people into submission and more on governments fostering a high degree of trust and societal compliance.”

This perhaps explains why Building public trust over Covid-19 crisis management is PN’s notable failure in its one-year report card.

Failure is not fatal, though. It is failure to change that might be, according to legendary US basketball coach John Wooden. – March 3, 2021.

* Hafiz Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.