Kit Siang questions ‘agonisingly slow process’ of drops in Covid-19 cases, deaths

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A medical worker stores a Covid-19 swab sample for testing. — Bernama photo

KUCHING (Nov 8): Democratic Action Party (DAP) veteran Lim Kit Siang has questioned the “agonisingly slow process” of reducing the number of Covid-19 infections and pandemic fatalities in the country.

While congratulating Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for achieving a new low for the daily cases and deaths nationwide of 4,343 and 35 respectively yesterday, he opined the country has a long way to go before achieving double-digit cases and single-digit deaths.

“Why is the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases and daily Covid-19 deaths such an agonisingly slow process as compared to other countries like Indonesia and India?” he asked.

Lim noted that Malaysia had fallen from the peak of 24,599 cases on Aug 26 to 4,343 yesterday in terms of daily infections, while daily Covid-19 deaths had fallen from the peak of 592 deaths on Sept 11 to 35 yesterday.

At this rate of reduction, he believes that it would be impossible for Khairy to achieve the 100-day target of fewer than 500 new Covid-19 cases a day by Dec 7.

“Indonesia is far ahead of Malaysia in the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases – for it has been recording for a consecutive 24 days for daily new Covid-19 cases in triple-digit numbers, and for a longer period of 38 consecutive days, recording double-digit figures for Covid-19 deaths.

“Yesterday, Indonesia recorded 444 new Covid-19 cases and 11 Covid-19 deaths as compared to 4,343 cases and 35 Covid-19 deaths for Malaysia – indicating that Indonesia will beat Malaysia in first recording single-digit daily deaths in the next few days,” he said.

Lim pointed out India, which has over 43 times the population of Malaysia, was even more stark – as the country yesterday reduced its daily new Covid-19 cases to 11,648 (or 2.8 per cent of its daily peak of 414,433 cases on May 6) and 256 daily Covid-19 deaths (or 5 per cent of its daily peak of 5,015 Covid-19 deaths on May 23).

In contrast, he said Malaysia had only yesterday reduced to 17.6 per cent of its peak of daily new cases and come down to 6 per cent of its peak of daily Covid-19 deaths.

“Khairy should convene an urgent meeting of public and private health experts to find out how Malaysia can get better and faster results in ending Malaysia’s long third wave since September last year by Khairy’s first 100 days on Dec 7,” Lim added.