THE numbers have soared to incredible heights. Malaysia now leads the world in the unenviable Covid race of who has the highest number of cases per million citizens, overtaking even India. 

The situation has little improved despite a string of movement curbs, lockdowns and full lockdowns variously known as the MCO, CMCO, EMCO and RMCO, with some SOPs thrown in, have resulted in nothing moret than an alphabet soup of confusion. 

The variables have changed significantly – there are now three new variants that are more virulent, and some reports say, deadly. After over a year, the economy is worn out, aid has run dry, businesses have died, people have succumbed to economic hardship, jobs are lost, inflation is on an uptrend, enforcement appears selective and people are irate; all this angst simplfied and neatly bundled as “pandemic fatigue”. 

As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different outcome, yet we seem intent on running another lockdown, similar to what was done earlier in the year, but failed to bring down the numbers to a satisfactory level. 

To say the government is overwhelmed is an understatement. Contact tracing is virtually impossible to do anymore with reported up to 80% of the spread coming from the community.

HIDE, the analytics driven early warning alert only surfaced once, and Putrajaya has implied it no longer can afford to dole out aid for a full shuttered economy. Against this backdrop, it is hard to accept Federal optimism that we can achieve the 9.9-million target by August, when only 1.3 million have received a minimum single dose. 

States like Selangor have stepped up to fill some gaps – admirably, all 56 assemblymen now offer free testing.  

Although on the surface, this causes alarm as numbers will increase, in the long run, it is the only fool proof way to stem the problem, as seen in the UK and Singapore. It is much better to have high numbers of patients, but isolated from the general population, instead of having more unknown carriers. 

This mass testing was in addition to unceasing sanitisation works and monitoring of public facilities, allocating money for patrol bikes and supplementary hospital amenities. They even started talks to procure vaccines to inoculate its population.  

Apart from helping with the odd financial request, states have wide access to public facilities, a better on-the-ground, local staff with familiarity on local concerns and peculiarities. They also have access to local councils and their resources, which in the case of Selangor, 12 such bodies with their own resources, including transport and enforcement officers.

Expertise-wise, state employees also have health know-how, with handling vector diseases and other disasters. Some, like Pahang or Kelantan, have wide experience in quickly setting up centres during disasters can be used as quarantine locations. Selangor has a team of experts led by a former health minister.  

The individual state government’s relatively decentralised logistics also allows quick mobilisation of ad-hoc setups, like vaccination centres. 

With the frontlines of the fight now focused on community control, Putrajaya should let the states lead the fight on their respective fronts, while supporting them with data and a broad nationwide strategy.

States should have the power to shut down factories and worksites and locations of interest, and if they don’t, it should be delegated to them. This would cut through red tapes, meetings and delays in making life-saving and economy-sensitive decisions.

It would also allow for better lower-level communication in an area, for example, opening hours for markets in a particular district. Local councils would also be more familiar with traffic patterns and crowd congregation points. 

With the health system stretched to breaking point and time being of utmost essence, it is time for Putrajaya to set aside political differences and make a sincere, urgent push to curb the spread of the virus and the problems that come with it. – May 26, 2021. 

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.