Malaysia More Successful in Controlling COVID-19

Evaluation of success in any venture is difficult to understand as it is often subject to personal or political views of the information source. The same applies to Malaysia’s fight against the COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

Even Government sources may be divided depending on which political group is involved; UMNO’s PM Ismail Sabri may may feel delighted of the outcome, but the Court Cluster may not be so. Worse still the Opposition may like to give its thump down, if not to regard it as downright failure of the government, in particular the Perikatan Nasional Government.

I don’t blame them, especially when Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin was the architect and main executor of the anti COVID-19 Program. After all he betrayed Pakatan Harapan Government. Well that is Malaysia, where all arguments boil down to politics.

I intend to give an objective and clear picture of the above situation. Firstly, one may feel a need to ease people’s panic in the country in July and August this year. There was a general sense of despair when people failed in their businesses, were thrown out of jobs and lost their regular income. Many ended up doing petty business, such as airline pilots as street vendors selling goreng pisang or lowly income earners raising white flags in front of their houses, feeling helpless struggling to attract emergency assistance. Whatever certain groups said about it, one cannot brush it aside. It was a spontaneous physical expression of desperation of the masses, in particular the low income residents of the Kelang Valley.

Such predicaments that the people faced were not peculiar to our country. It happened in many, including some richer countries. Needles to mention the worse scenario that occurred in poorer countries like the Philippines, Indonesia or India.

My first prediction of COVID-19 situation was written on 28 July for the end of August 2021, which I dubbed as The Merdeka Prediction. I sincerely felt it was a worthwhile effort and more noble than making Forecasts of the By-Election, State Election and General Elections results, though I never failed to do these since thirteen years ago. COVID-19 forecast was easier to make, and more accurate too. A virus is like an army, more steadfast when it attacks; so not too difficult to predict the outcome. If we have the weapon or shield, we should be able to win. Virus may also adapts or mutate, such as mutation into Delta Variant, but it proved to be not that deadly enough to wipe us out.

The result of my Merdeka COVID Prediction was only partly accurate. Actual daily new cases reached a three day average of 19,642 persons compared with the predicted case of 19,000 for 31 August 2021. Death rate was more persistent at 282 actual cases compared with the predicted 46 cases.

Subsequently, the second COVID-19 prediction was published in early September to cover the months of September and October. I felt it was still necessary to do it not only to reduce the people’s panic, but more as a yardstick to measure the government’s performance during this critical two month period. The government did not make its own prediction, perhaps out of fear of failing to achieve it.

The Chart below shows the actual data on new daily infection and death case compared with this blog prediction.

COVID-19 Data by selected countries-Date:2 November 2021

For the purpose of meaningful comparison, the official country data are adjusted for every 100,000 population of each country. In this way a new set of data are obtained, giving out the following results:

The above findings indicate that COVID-9 is a fair virus and hit us based on our own control preferences. If a country choose to be too open with little control procedure or SOPs, like the United States and Britain, such countries suffered the worst consequences.

East Asian countries like China, Japan and Korea choose very stringent control procedures, and experienced low infection and death cases.

On the other hand, Malaysia and Singapore decided on the middle ground that balance live and livelihood of the people. As a result Malaysia ends up with a fairly high case numbers, but still manageable without extreme burden to people’s livelihood and the public healthcare system. The current down trend in cases could mean that the worst may be over for us.

In spite of its success so far, Singapore still cannot escape totally, as the current infection case figures there suggest. The worst case situation may still be ahead of them.

The Delta Variant is more virulent than the earlier COVID-19 Variants. So far China, Japan and Korea managed to keep it at bay, the question is for how long. The answers to-date may be in the stringent border controls in these countries. It is their strategy by choice because their borders are less porous due to geographical position as well as their ability to enforce stringent immigration control at the border. So, the question is for how long can they keep their countries closed? Once opened up, will their population still be protected from the virus?

CONCLUSION

Malaysia has taken the appropriate strategy in the war against COVID-19 Pandemic. This gives us a somewhat right outcome from an appropriate balance between keeping lives and maintaining livelihood.

It needs great minds and strategists to achieve this so far. Thanks Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin, Khairy Jamaluddin, Tan Sri Noor Hisham Abdullah and the team that formulated and enforced the COVID-19 war strategy. Malaysians love them, but we should allow the team to continue to ensure a final victory on COVID-19 and for future success of the country.

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DAH IKHWAN