I believe that in view of the current surge of positive cases of COVID-19 in our country, there should not be any more place for complacency, and the government must consider putting more drastic measures in anticipation of possible deterioration or surge in positive cases.
In Malaysia, a tabligh event which was attended by an estimated 15,000 people on Feb 27 to Mar 1 has sparked a new cluster of transmission and said to have started a second wave of the viral spread in Malaysia causing the recent surge of cases in Malaysia.
Since then, the authorities have been working hard to track down the participants, reportedly more than 600 from Sarawak alone, but this itself is proving difficult, straining the government’s contact tracing capacities.
With the difficulties being faced especially in contact tracing all these participants as well as a “tidak-apa” attititude or lack of social awareness among public on importance of preventive measures, we can see that the battle against Covid-19 may no longer be merely a public health issue. At this rate, there is no doubt that it is also a national security concern that has a deep impact on our society and economy. Thus, in order to address this properly, a whole of government and whole-of-society approach is needed.
This in my view may require a targeted lockdown where essential services are still continued and citizens have a limited but basic freedom of movement only when necessary. However this will require a total prohibition of mass gatherings which is uniformly implemented across all private, government, civil and even religious sectors for the next few weeks up to a month, and then reviewed based on information then.
This will also require the Ministry of Education to decide to prolong the current school holidays in view of proper monitoring of the developments of the spread of the virus. This will help flatten the curve of case increase and also help optimizing healthcare resources to make sure they are not overburdened by a sudden huge increase of cases.
The government should then strongly promote and even incentivise strict social distancing by providing adequate support system for workers, employers and also regular citizens. This is especially important for daily paid workers or even odd jobs workers that do not have the option from working from home if a total strict lockdown is implemented. This has been successfully practiced is few countries without the need for a full lockdown.
In Singapore, people who sought and received self-quarantined as approved by the government stands to receive SGD$100 per day. This also encourages and incentivize Singaporeans to get themselves tested and take the necessary precautions.
On top of that, public awareness campaigns should be increased and should not be only confined to urban areas, but also to take into consideration the residents in rural areas, who tends to have less access to information. They are also susceptible to the spread of the virus and in order to reach to them, we may require different media, methods and volume of communication to reach and educate them. In general, rural healthcare fascilities may not be as equip to handle any of such outbreak.
Thus, I call upon the government to treat Covid-19 as a national security issue, and to show leadership by adopting a whole-of-society approach as we combat this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic together as a nation.
We as the public should also play our part by taking the necessary precautions including practicing social distancing and only go out only when absolutely necessary.