IT has breached the 6,000-mark nationwide, the highest ever so far but yet, the Selangor government, which still tops the chart of Covid-19 infections, seems to be still doing the juggling.

On one hand, Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari said it agreed to a total lockdown but only with conditions.

Clearly, the state government continues tossing things into the air and balancing adroitly despite the spikes in daily tally. Selangor, being the country’s richest and most populous state, has reported more than 1,000 cases since several weeks ago, making at least a quarter of the daily cases nationwide.

The MB said Selangor would accept the decision for a total lockdown in the state, provided that clearer standard operating procedure is issued and financial aid channelled to the people.

Supporting him as expected was his sparring partner, Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, chairman of Selangor’s Covid-19 task force who said if Putrajaya wanted to enforce a full lockdown, it must be targeted and efficient.

And he was also quoted as saying that stricter lockdown in Selangor is not the solution to contain the pandemic.

And he has the cheek to blame the federal government over what he described as “failure” to restrict infections within Covid-19 clusters that have spilt over to infect communities. I wonder what makes him say that? Is it because of the task force’s own failure in minimising infections in the state?

Since its formation in March last year, nothing much seems to have been done by the task force as far as Covid-19 cases are concerned. Almost every day, Selangor tops the chart and yesterday, the number of new infections in the state stood at 2,251. What else can be made of this?

The task force is reported to have used analytical platforms, machine intelligence and big data analytics, gathered all the scientific proof, the latest information and so on and so forth. And Dzulkefly claimed Selangor had achieved success by using technology at a local level in fighting the pandemic.

I am a resident of Ampang, Selangor, and I believe that others residing in the state, will agree with me that it has done nothing, to be precise, nothing at all, to ease the pandemic situation since early last year – the proof as can be seen in the daily statistics on Selangor’s infectivity.

Blaming the government won’t help either. Everyone must pull together, work together and contribute positively. Slander, critics or pointing fingers will only worsen things.

Everyone else in the world is affected badly but we must not lose focus on finding Malaysian solutions. – May 20, 2021.

*Saiful Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.