Covid-19, post-Muhyiddin – P. Gunasegaram

[superadmin]

A CURIOUS thing happened after Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin resigned on August 16 and became the caretaker prime minister, during which period, he should not make any major decisions, but wait for the next prime minister to do so.

But that was not to be. He made a major decision to roll back movement controls, relaxing the standard operating procedures for those who have been fully vaccinated allowing them to dine in, and other associated measures. These were announced on August 19, to take effect the following day, when the palace announced that it had picked Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob as the new prime minister.

What was the great hurry for Muhyiddin? Did he want to steal a little bit of thunder in his last days as prime minister? He should have let his successor make the decision, considering that his handling of Covid-19 was one of the reasons MPs lost confidence in his leadership.

Muhyiddin’s decision to lift restrictions at a time when the number of new infections stood at or around record levels, with deaths exceeding 200 a day and hospitals under stress and strain from too many serious cases, was roundly criticised.

Despite the lifting of restrictions, many food operators did not rejoice; some joined in the criticism against the move. It was rushed – not all workers have been fully vaccinated. No one rushed to reopen their businesses.

The other thing to have considered is that a large proportion of the population had not been vaccinated as of August 18. The total for Malaysia was 37.5% of the population. While the chances of vaccinated individuals getting Covid-19 are reduced, they can still catch the disease.

And since they don’t live in bubbles where everyone is vaccinated, they can potentially infect others who have not received the jab. Thus, it can be reasonably argued that opening up can be delayed a bit more until the rate of fully vaccinated individuals reaches 60% to 70% of the population, such as in the United Kingdom.

At that point, given the observation that those who are vaccinated are very much unlikely to experience severe symptoms and have much lower mortality rates, it would be right to lift restrictions – without endangering lives.


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