THE signs were already there, ample warning was given, but not many paid attention and, yesterday, a total of 72,823 people in the country were being treated for Covid-19.

As record Covid-19 numbers were being broken almost every day in recent weeks, Putrajaya had no choice but to impose a total lockdown – a move the government had earlier promised they would not resort to.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had said on March 17 that a nationwide lockdown would not be imposed, but even he, too, had to give in after health officials told him there was no other way.

Those clamouring for a total lockdown would agree that this was the only way to give the healthcare system, which is at risk of collapse, a breather, as most hospitals are now bursting at the seams.

Intensive care units (ICU) across the Klang Valley had exceeded 113% capacity while the nationwide total was at 91%.

Fatalities had been at an all-time high, with 50 to 60 deaths reported over the last few days.

The number of brought-in-dead cases, too, had been on an uptrend, which experts said could also be due to the overstretched healthcare system.

Frontliners were being worked to the bone, resulting in Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah making an urgent plea: “We need your support to protect our healthcare system and frontliners from total collapse”.

Putrajaya imposed the movement-control order (MCO 3.0) from May 12, as the daily cases were trending between 3,000 and 4,000 while there were more than 37,000 active cases. The lockdown was supposed to be in effect until June 6.

The announcement came mere days after Noor Hisham sent an urgent message to hospital chiefs nationwide to increase their capacity in anticipation of more severely ill Covid-19 patients.

He also cited worrying statistics on admissions to the ICU then, which increased by 44% over a span of two weeks. Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Kelantan and Sarawak were the states that saw a marked increase in patients needing critical care.

By then, the ICU bed occupancy rate had exceeded 70% in 22 public hospitals and up to 90% in some of them.

Muhyiddin then defended the decision to enforce MCO 3.0, saying the government had to take drastic steps to stop the rise in new Covid-19 infections, which would otherwise trigger a national crisis.

He said the data and science showed that social gatherings made it difficult to practise social distancing and was the main cause for the rise in cases.

MCO 3.0, however, received flak as it was not as stringent as the first lockdown imposed on March 18, 2020. This time round, the economic sector was allowed to operate.

Critics claimed it was half-baked and would never rein in the virus. They demanded for a total lockdown.

By then Hari Raya Aidilfitri and its Ramadan bazaars had passed and cases started rising again at an unprecedented high, no thanks also to workplace and community transmission clusters, which have been mushrooming.

Health Minister Dr Adham Baba recently said that 40 religious clusters had sprung up during the Ramadan month due to the increase in inter-state and inter-district travel.

MCO 3.0 looked set to fail, forcing Putrajaya on May 21 to, once again, announce stricter curbs on the economic and social sectors.

Noor Hisham cited worrying statistics that there were 1,085 workplace clusters recorded that saw a total of 129,322 cases between January 25 and May 26.

The debate over striking a balance between lives and livelihood continued.

The economic sector has always been apprehensive about a total lockdown, which would grind their operations to a halt, affect their bottom lines or, worse, force them to fold.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz warned that 2.8 million high-risk informal workers will lose their source of income if a full-scale lockdown is implemented.

The senator said a million people would be made unemployed if the economic sector closes this time around.

He said during MCO 1.0, 68% of businesses reported no sales or revenue, 42.5% of businesses needed more than six months to recover, and two out of three businesses had outstanding debts within six months.

Minister of International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali had posted on Facebook two days ago that the government had unanimously agreed not to impose a total lockdown as millions would be affected.

The country reported economic losses of RM2.4 billion a day during the first MCO but yesterday, Putrajaya had to take the most drastic measure – impose a total lockdown for a period of two weeks from June 1 to June 14.

Muhyiddin said the government would reopen more economic sectors during the second phase of the total lockdown if the number of new infections fall during this first phase of total lockdown. The second phase would be over four weeks.

Once the second phase is over, the country would return to the current MCO 3.0 where social activities would still be prohibited but almost all economic sectors would be reopened.

The prime minister said the decision was taken after Malaysia continued to record a high number of daily infections and the emergence of new variants that are more aggressive.

Critics also blamed the slow roll-out of the national vaccination programme for another reason why hospitals are being filled up.

Private general practitioners yesterday slammed the government for not enlisting their help in expediting the vaccination process.

Ministers were told to “wake up” and face the reality that the national vaccination programme was “broken”.

At least the government listened now, one critic told The Malaysian Insight. It is the right decision, although a bit late. – May 29, 2021.