JANUARY 9 ― Our present Covid predicament would have been averted if the Health Ministry had heeded these SOPs:
1. Quarantined Sabah returnees who are super-spreader (SS) persons.
2. Re-tested returnees from Sabah PRN which was an SS event.
3. Dealt appropriately with prison and detention centre clusters which was also an SS event.
OK la! It’s now water under the bridge.
But, their obsession with the MCO will inflict collateral damage to our mental health, drive families below the poverty line, increase child malnutrition, trigger more domestic violence, negatively impact our children’s education, kill livelihoods, raise unemployment rate, bankrupt SMEs and run down the nation’s economy.
We will be in a perpetual cycle of MCO because the Health Ministry is stuck with its archaic pandemic playbook.
Since October 2020, they ignored the advice of public health experts, epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists and data scientists from academia, military and those outside the Health Ministry to rethink and restrategise their Covid-19 pandemic management plans.
Until and unless the Health Ministry get their #COVID19Malaysia game-plan in order, we will be in a vicious cycle of LOCKDOWN-UNLOCK-LOCKDOWN
The 10-point framework of action crystallised by the 46 captains of the Healthcare Cluster are evidence-based and best practices to end the raging outbreaks.
There must be a radical reform of the Health Ministry policies to embrace and operationalise Find-Test-Trace-Isolate-Support (FTTIS).
This is apart from strict adherence to mask wearing, physical distancing, work from home, postponing social events and all forms of gatherings especially political ones.
Otherwise, we will all be back in another lockdown a few months later down the road.
A proportional, targeted and well calibrated MCO or circuit breaker is the VERY, VERY LAST resort.
It should NOT be the first option as advocated by the Health Ministry in Putrajaya to the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
#DemiNegara
#FindTestTraceIsolateSupport
#StaySafe
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
