BAKRI MP Yeo Bee Yin has questioned the government on why the daily Covid-19 testing capacity has yet to be scaled up to 150,000.

“There have been calls from many groups, including the opposition lawmakers, to ramp up testing capacity of the country,” the former energy, science, technology, environment and climate change minister said in a statement.

“In fact, back in January, the government had said it targeted to increase RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing capacity of the country from about 70,000 to 100,000 with the aim to reach 150,000 testing capacity.”

“Four months have now passed, our testing figures still revolve around 70,000 per day, where is the promised 150,000?” she added.

Yeo said the Covid-19 virus waits for no one and four months is a long time in battling a once-in-a-century global pandemic.

The Bakri MP said Putrajaya has not attempted to conduct large-scale screening initiatives to identify positive cases in the community. 

Calls by several quarters to include RTK-Antigen (RTK-Ag) test kits in the screening process were also ignored.

“While RTK-Ag may be less accurate, it makes up for speed and capacity (as it is widely available and not restricted by lab capacity). It surely has a place to play as a stopgap measure as we struggle in increasing RT-PCR capacity,” she said.

Yeo said the government cannot just expect the people to be disciplined and suffer the financial impact of movement control order (MCO) while they are not bucking up on their part.

She added that the most important and straightforward way to contain the virus from spreading is through testing and isolating, with the simple logic that if the positive cases are detected earlier than it is unlikely for it to spread in the community.

“Indeed, tackling Covid-19 crisis is not an easy one, but if after a year, the government can’t even get basic things like tests and isolation right, what hope do Malaysians have?” she said.

“How many more MCO can we afford to bring the country out of Covid-19 crisis?  The government is insane if their plan is to do the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result,” she added.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said on January 21 that the ministry is working to step up its daily testing capacity from 70,000 to 150,000. – May 15, 2021.