MINISTER of International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali’s former press secretary has blamed director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah for the continuing spike in Covid-19 cases as pressure mounts on the government over the prolonged lockdowns.

“D-G, you obviously failed to do proper planning and all these blanket lockdowns show that you are incapable of handling (the Covid-19 pandemic).

“Stick to surgery or better still quit,” Azmin’s former press secretary Adlin M. Zabri said on Twitter.

While Adlin did not call out Noor Hisham directly, he posted the tweet along with a story headlined “Netizens rebuke DG over his post on CACs in Selangor”.

Noor Hisham had tweeted a list of Covid-19 assessment centres in Selangor today, urging the public not to focus on Stadium Malawati in Shah Alam after media reports of overcrowding there yesterday.

This was not the first attack by Adlin – who joined Azmin after the latter joined Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s cabinet, but left in February this year – on Noor Hisham.

In a previous tweet laced with sarcasm, Adlin said: “DG Health – What’s happening? (This) must be due to the manufacturing sector”.

Adlin’s tweet was accompanied by a screen cap of a news report about 204 Covid-19 vaccination staffers at the IDCC in Shah Alam being infected by Covid-19.

Prior to that, on July 10, Adlin again tweeted: “DG Health…hope (you) listen to this”.

The tweet was accompanied by a video quoting the World Health Organization’s Dr Maria Van Kerkhove saying that said there was an increase in infections in more than 20 countries in the past week.

One reason for the increase, said Van Kerkhove, was due to the “inappropriate use of public health and social measures”. She added that these measures do not necessarily include lockdowns.

Adlin’s tweet is unsurprising as Azmin has been pushing for the government to allow all sectors of manufacturing to resume again.

Critics have also slammed him for pushing many businesses to operate under the lockdown, which they said was the reason for the Covid-19 caseload not abating.

Muhyiddin and his government have come under tremendous pressure recently following the surge in new infections and deaths every day despite the government’s state of emergency and total lockdown.

Adding to that, the government is finding it hard to reduce the number of new infections by shutting down huge parts of the economy, while foreign business councils have begun pressuring Perikatan Nasional to reopen the manufacturing sector.

A check later found that Adlin had deleted his Twitter account. – July 13, 2021.