{"id":42360,"date":"2021-01-04T10:50:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T02:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/?p=42360"},"modified":"2022-09-01T11:25:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T03:25:25","slug":"new-year-new-health-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/new-year-new-health-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year, New Health Minister?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Adham-baba-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18472\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Can Muhyiddin &nbsp;appoint a hands-on Health Minister to lead the war against Covid-19 and move Adham Baba sideways to another Ministry?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We entered the New Year with the Covid-19 pandemic raging its worst stage in&nbsp; Malaysia and the world, registering on the last day of 2020 a &nbsp;record-high &nbsp;daily increase in Malaysia &nbsp;of 2,525 new Covid-19 cases, while the world registers a record-high daily increase of over 740,000 new Covid-19 cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cumulative total of recorded &nbsp;Covid-19 cases in Malaysia and the world are 113,010 cases and 83.8 million cases respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/file-photo-the-2020-china-international-fair-for-trade-in-services-ciftis-in-beijing-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18469\"\/><figcaption><strong><em>Is there any &nbsp;light at the end of the tunnel with the third Covid-19 vaccine securing approval \u2013 after the Chinese authorities have given conditional approval for general public use of a vaccine developed by the state-owned&nbsp;SINOPHARM?<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>United States President-Elect Joe Biden had warned that its going to take \u201cyears, not months\u201d to vaccinate the nation under the Trump vaccination distribution plan, and&nbsp;said he would \u201cmove heaven and earth\u201d to ramp up vaccination efforts, with the goal of administering 100 million inoculations within his first 100 days in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Singapore has started its roll-out of Pfizer\u2019s Covid-19 vaccine with healthcare workers two days ago to be the first Asian country to begin an inoculation campaign against the coronavirus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sINGAPORE.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18470\"\/><figcaption><strong><em>Together with vaccines from other pharmaceutical sources, Singapore expects to have enough vaccine doses for all 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Malaysia\u2019s first batch of vaccines will arrive only in February or March, and there are no known plans as to when Malaysia will have enough vaccines for the entire population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The root problem of&nbsp; Malaysia\u2019s war against Covid-19 pandemic is that the grave trust deficit of the Muhyiddin government after a good start at the beginning of &nbsp;the pandemic, caused by double standards by Ministers and VIPs who violated the Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) &nbsp;resulting in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic after the Sabah state general election, which has still &nbsp;to be brought under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In early December, the United States Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected &nbsp;2,987 daily new cases on January 1, 2021 and 5,379 infections on March 21, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IHME model projected a continuous rise in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia until mid-March 2021, hitting over 5,000 infections daily from February 25, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We would know in a few hours whether IHME will hit the mark on its projection of &nbsp;daily increase of new Covid-19 infections on January 1, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be that as it may, one of the Malaysia\u2019s biggest problems is the lack of leadership and discipline among the top hierarchy of the Muhyiddin Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Warm-water.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18471\"\/><figcaption><strong><em>In fact, Malaysia is the only country in the world during the pandemic which had operated without an effective Minister of Health, who had incapacitated himself with a series of fiascos &nbsp;like \u201cwarm water cure for Covid-19\u201d, \u201c500 countries\u201d and \u201c15 states in Malaysia\u201d gaffes.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, he is the last person to explain why &nbsp;it has been impossible to instal an &nbsp;\u201call-of-government\u201d and \u201cwhole-of-society\u201d strategy and approach to the war against the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the Movement Control Order (MCO) was first imposed on March 18 last year, Malaysia had 790 Covd-19 cases and two fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early this morning, when the government extended the regulations underpinning movement control order restrictions until March 31, Malaysia\u2019s cumulative total of Covid-19 cases &nbsp;had increased 143 times to &nbsp;113,010 infections, with a &nbsp;daily increase by 2,525 cases (more than three times the total cumulative &nbsp;Covid-19 cases &nbsp;when the MCO was first imposed) and 471 Covid-19 fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are we heading for stormy waters in the Covid-19 pandemic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can the government restore public trust and confidence in the war against Covid-19 pandemic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An important &nbsp;test is whether the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, can appoint a hands-on Health Minister to spearhead the \u201call-of-government\u201d and \u201cwhole-of-society\u201d strategy and approach in the war against Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If because of its \u201cbackdoor\u201d nature and the fragile condition of the Perikatan Nasional government it is not possible to sack Dr. Adham Baba from Cabinet, is it possible to have a Cabinet reshuffle to put in place a hands-on Minister of Health to lead the war against the Covid-19 pandemic and move Dr. Adham Baba sideways to another Ministry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Lim&nbsp;Kit&nbsp;Siang,<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>MP for Iskandar Puteri<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can Muhyiddin &nbsp;appoint a hands-on Health Minister to lead the war against Covid-19 and move Adham Baba sideways to another Ministry? We entered the New Year with the Covid-19 pandemic raging its worst stage in&nbsp; Malaysia and the world, registering on the last day of 2020 a &nbsp;record-high &nbsp;daily increase in Malaysia &nbsp;of 2,525 new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[539],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-weekly-highlights"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46438,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42360\/revisions\/46438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dapmalaysia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}