THE prime minister and the man who hopes to replace him both announced their strategies to curb the Covid-19 and economic crises earlier this week.

Opposition leader and Pakatan Harapan chairman Anwar Ibrahim first released his 19 pages of slides to tackle the Covid-19-inflicted issues the country is facing on June 14, along with a Facebook live discussion with the public.

A day later, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin read an 11-page statement on the government’s plan said to be based on “data and science” via a televised address.

Their propositions to gear the country back to normalcy, when compared side-to-side, contrasted each other.

The Malaysian Insight takes a look at both their approaches.

Vaccination rate

Muhyiddin said that for the current Phase One of the full movement-control order (FMCO) to ease up to Phase Two, 10% of the population must be vaccinated.

To proceed to Phase Three, he said at least 40% of the population must be vaccinated, while for Phase Four, 60% has to be achieved.

He added that Phase Four was likely to begin at the end of October.

He was also confident that the number of jabs will increase to over 300,000 doses a day in months.

The vaccine supply will also increase to as much as 16 million doses at the end of July, Muhyiddin said.

As for Anwar, he said the best scenario was that the National Covid-19 Immunisation Program (PICK) vaccinates 65% of the population by the end of 2021 with at least the first of the two doses administered.

He said that with present realities, Malaysia can only reach 40% by year-end, based on calculations of the current outlook.

Due to the limitation of vaccines, he proposed that the vaccination programme be targeted according to priority by geographical areas.

Also, he proposed that the government to quicken the vaccination rate by giving out the first dose to as many individuals first.

Anwar predicted that if his vaccination plan is executed, the daily cases will significantly drop to below 500 cases by December.

Lockdown’s efficiency

Muhyiddin said that the implementation of Phase One of FMCO on June 1 had helped the country “avoid a catastrophe” considering the sloping trend of Covid-19 infections.

He said the 4,949 cases recorded on Tuesday was a decrease from the 9,020 cases on May 29, which was the day Malaysia saw the highest daily number of Covid-19 cases.

Anwar, on the other hand, said the reported daily cases were less than it actually is.

He said that more than 10% of the cases were not reported and that infections were being detected and reported about three to seven days late on average.

The Port Dickson MP said there was incomplete data, and added that what was predicted from available data was a potential new wave that was to come after June.

Economic recovery

Muhyiddin’s four-phased plan depends on three indicators:

1. The number of Covid-19 cases daily

2. The capacity of the healthcare system, including beds available in intensive care units (ICU)

3. The percentage of the population that has been vaccinated against Covid-19

Only when all three factors have shown positive signs can the economic sectors gradually open up, he said.

Anwar, in turn, broke down his plan into 12 strategies, with actions needed for various departments: health, future health, households, industries, education, job creation, gig economy, skilled economy, foreign investments, politics, society and lastly, a data-driven policy.

All 12 strategies have also been organised by three levels of urgency: now, immediate and important.

Anwar added that a command-and-control centre and situation rooms be set up at the district, state and country levels. – June 16, 2021.