KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 — The September 11 tragedy is not one that is only synonymous with the United States (US) but also here in Malaysia, in relation to its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said.
In a statement today, the Iskandar Puteri MP said that as of yesterday, Malaysia has not just beaten the US in daily Covid-19 cases per million population, but also in the daily Covid-19 deaths per million population categories.
Lim demanded that there should be an explanation on the high daily death rates, Brought-in-Dead (BID) Covid-19 cases, as well as others, especially on why the country’s vaccination rate has seemingly “stalled”.
“Yesterday, America marked the 20th anniversary of the September 11 tragedy but unnoticed, Malaysia was having its own September 11 tragedy yesterday.
“This was Malaysia’s catastrophic handling of the 21-month war against the Covid-19 pandemic, to the extent that yesterday, we beat the US not only in the daily Covid-19 cases per million population but we also beat the US in daily Covid-19 deaths per million population.
“On September 10, 2021, the daily Covid-19 cases per million for the US was 787.2 and Malaysia 641.6 while the daily Covid-19 deaths per million for the US was 13.24 and for Malaysia, 10.40,” he said.
Lim said that for September 11, 2021, the figures for both categories have been reversed, lamenting that Malaysia now has got higher figures for both categories than the US – i.e. 592.4 for Malaysia and 214 for the US’ daily Covid 19 cases per million and 17.9 for Malaysia and 2.15 for the US for the daily Covid-19 deaths per million categories.
He said Malaysians were also promised 500,000 doses of vaccination a day, but this rate was achieved only for eleven days and since then it had plummeted.
“Yesterday, the vaccination rate had fallen to 258,929 doses, which is contrary to the need to ramp up the vaccination rate especially with the Delta variant causing havoc not only in Malaysia but the world. I had in fact suggested a ramp-up of the vaccination rate of one million doses of vaccines a day.
“Is this because of a short supply of vaccines despite government assurance of adequate vaccine supplies that we are down to the administration of a quarter-million doses of vaccine a day?” Lim asked.
