THERE is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action – Jawaharlal Nehru.

He’s right of course, and Malaysians are tired of seeing it happen over the course of the past year in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

More people have died since the emergency was declared on January 11 than in the first wave last year. 

More people have been infected. More people in intensive care. More people intubated and on ventilators. More people dead on arrival at hospitals.

As of yesterday, more than 500,000 people have been infected and 2,199 dead from Covid-19. 

That is the human cost of the pandemic that has risen after the emergency and a series of tightened and loosened lockdowns were enforced this year.

Of course, Malaysia is not losing RM2.4 billion a day now like it did during the first lockdown in March 2020. That’s not because the current lockdown is less strict but there are now fewer people in business to lose money.

The only bright spot is that the vaccination campaign is crawling up to some sort of speed by June as more vaccine supplies arrive and people get called up to receive their first dose.

What Malaysians need are clarity and science in the government’s plans and standard operating procedures (SOPs). There is little use in announcing meetings and publishing stricter SOPs only to be let down by the shallowness of the entire plan.

Yes, we need fewer people at the workplaces. Yes, we need less human and traffic movement.  We need less crowds and more caution. We need to do all this to bring down the numbers.

But that’s the people so that the health department can build up their capacity to deal with the deluge of infected people and those dying and in need of ICUs and more such as morgues and even burial plots.

But what are the government’s plans to bring down the numbers and get the virus out of our daily lives?

Is there a comprehensive fInd, test, trace, isolate and support (FTTIS) plan that the World Health Organisation proposed at the beginning of the pandemic? Only Selangor seems to be doing it now.

Asking the people to stay home is one thing but the government must do more than just restricting business hours, public transport capacity and frequencies or having more roadblocks to check on traffic movements.

Go where the clusters are and test more often. Allow businesses to open and strictly regulate capacity and distancing rules by making use of the hotspot identification and dynamic engagement tool and MySejahtera app.

Use science and data to beat the pandemic and keep the economy going.

The virus is activie 24/7, not just on the night shift. It is prevalent in workplaces, religious places and educational institutions, not in restaurants reduced to offering only delivery or takeaway services.

Government meetings and deliberations on the pandemic and lockdown must come up with something concrete with commonsense included, not the kind of nonsense that makes the government a bigger laughing stock.

It would be comeuppance for the people if they had elected this government. But the people did not do that and do not deserve such an inept government.

At the very least, get competent people to implement the FTTIS plan and better SOPs. Because right now, this stupidity is even more horrifying than the Covid-19 statistics in Malaysia. – May 23, 2021.

* Jahabar Sadiq runs The Malaysian Insight.