IF a survey were to be held now to ask the people whether the present government is doing a good job in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia, clearly not many will think so.

Despite the efforts the government has put in, it looks like it is fighting a losing battle .

We assume that the government knows and is aware of what it is doing. On the surface, it appears that it has done everything by the book, including mirroring the measures that were undertaken by other countries considered to have successfully contained the virus.

It appears that except for the speed in which the government moved to stop transmissions from spreading rapidly, the measures it has implemented mirror those implemented by the government in China i.e strict lockdowns, establishment of health checkpoints, population movement curbs, transitional phases of lockdown, closed borders, a national system of contact tracing, test and quarantine at entry checkpoints, employment of drones – with some equipped with loudspeakers – to monitor and rebuke those who don’t follow the rule and vaccinating to reach herd immunity.

However, China is not even ranked as among the top five countries that has responded efficiently to the crisis.

So what went horribly sideways? 

Did public health actions fail? When the virus made its way to the more remote places in Kelantan, Sabah, Sarawak, it is clear that none of them were equipped to deal with it. True, it was an unusual development as well as a total surprise. But even so, their inadequacy was woefully exposed. 

Did the various ministries fail to work together? This will explain the constant lack of a collective decision. The rules weren’t always clear, either. Take the case of outbreaks in the detention camps for migrants in mid-2020. Did the authorities learn their lesson? Obviously no, because an outbreak in prisons followed in late 2020. 

Leadership? The PM has taken dignified silence to a new level.

Failure of MySejahtera in contact tracing? In countries regarded to have handled the the pandemic best, people who had come into contact with an infected person were traced and notified within hours of detection, which was followed by mass testing in the area the infection occurred.

Or was it the oft-cited reason: public non-compliance? Going by the number of people already registered under MySejahtera for vaccination – 16.5 million, which is almost half of the population – it appears that the population takes this infection seriously. Reaching herd immunity as fast as possible is an achievable target. But what happened? From February when the prime minister became the first person to be vaccinated in the country until now, nearly six months later, the government is still bickering among itself over the mode and manner of vaccinating the people. 

Moving forward, if a person is required to undergo quarantine, the government should consider paying the person’s full salary for up to 21 days as incentive to ensure compliance. Incentivising citizens to get themselves vaccinated as soon as possible, could be a complementary measure.

As of end of 2019, according to the Department of Statistics, there were 7.3 million households with a monthly income of RM15,000 and below. Many of these people came to the cities in search of a better life. They often had no savings. With the lockdowns introduced in spurts, many of these households face hunger, illness and are now having to deal with the financial as well as the emotional toll of Covid-19. 

So let’s rewind and compare the different lockdowns. By the far the most effective and successful of them all was the first lockdown, stretching over four phases from March 18 to May 3 least year. During the first lockdown, several measures were implemented which were missing in all subsequent lockdowns e.g ban on gatherings for religious, sports, social and cultural activities and a wage-subsidy programme to assist employers in retaining their workers.

It is obvious that measures introduced since the first lockdown have not been as successful. Why keep doing the same thing? No matter how many revisions and amendments the government does, they will not produce the desired results.

If the government is not willing to revisit some of the measures that they introduced during the first lockdown which appears to have yielded the best results, why don’t it, for once, listen to the people? The people have spoken so on the various social and the mainstream media. And some of them are experts in their fields, some before some members in the cabinet were even born. Did the government read and consider their feedback? The haphazard beginning of the vaccination programme was a clear example.  Despite the advice of medical fraternity, the programme received brickbats in its initial implementation. Chaos still reigns and various groups continue to clamour to be first in line for the jabs.

Before our country slides into the list of countries with the worst response to the pandemic, Malaysians hope the government will learn from its mistakes and return the country to a recovery path as soon as possible. 

Once herd immunity is achieved, what lies ahead is how the government will deal with the multiple variants that seem to infect those who have completed a full course of vaccination.

Achieving herd immunity is not the government’s lasting legacy. Returning the country to normalcy and restoring the faith of all Malaysians in the current government  is. – June 30, 2021.

* FLK reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.