Total lockdown most viable way to bring Covid-19 cases down, says DAP man

KUCHING: The Sarawak government needs to impose a ‘total circuit-breaker’ to prevent the number of new Covid-19 cases from escalating further, said Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak member Julian Tan.

“Incrementally tightening the measures in the standard operating procedures (SOP) would not work in curbing the daily numbers of new infections; it would only prolong the suffering of the economy, of our local businesses,” he said in a statement.

Tan said the latest research by the 100 most influential economists showed that countries with stricter lockdown exhibited better economic performance.

He also pointed out the contradictory statements by the state and federal ministers, while the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) had not been helpful in clarifying the latest SOP to the public.

“SDMC should avoid such conflicting nationwide and statewide announcements, especially during pandemic crises like this where citizens’ lives are already at stake.”

Tan said instead of clarifying the conflicting announcements on the latest SOP, certain state ministers had posted on Facebook the differences in the SOP between Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak.

“Enough is enough. Such cheap publicity of autonomy has got to stop. Fight it over in Parliament; there’s no point harping about it on Facebook, yet being in total silence when it comes to Parliament seating.”

Tan stressed that autonomy should be meant for the state to make better decisions, and not to create confusion during an Emergency.

“Autonomy is a double-edged sword that needs to be helmed by solid and competent leadership; indecisiveness would only make it cut the other way.”

Tan said the whole country should present a united front in the battle against Covid-19, as the previous versions of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in Sarawak had failed to stem the spread of the virus.

Thus, he asked the state to change its approach in handling the local outbreak towards achieving a better outcome, including improving the current tracing mechanism.

“Our contact-tracing is not effective and fast enough. The close-contacts must be identified, tested and isolated within the first 24 hours, to contain the spread.”

Tan also criticised SDMC for its slow decision-making process and also for its indecisiveness, pointing out that the bureaucratic red tapes should be cut so as to be more effective in handling of the Covid-19 situation.

“You (SDMC) don’t need more than 24 hours to make a decision in a crisis like this. Stop the bureaucracy and start coordinating well with the federal government.”

Mass Covid-19 testing must also be ramped up as the current targeted rate of 150,000 daily testing was not good enough, added Tan.

“In Sarawak, our latest average positive rate of more than 12 per cent is more than doubled the five per cent advisory rate by the World Health Organisation (WHO).”

He asked the government to look into the mechanism of combining Rapid PCR and rTPCR to help quickly diagnose more Covid-19 cases.

Moreover, he noted that there had been poor compliance with SOP as Sarawak’s current reproductivity rate stood the second highest in the world, as at May 24.

“Ramping up the vaccination programme is our only option now.

“In reality, we are plagued by ministries that are still doing catching-up with the latest SOP changes, flip-flopping and adding confusion over the SOP, and poor compliance among the public.”

Tan also called upon the government to be more transparent and outline a concrete plan on how they would plan to increase the current daily vaccination rate from the average of 6,490 jabs, to 45,000 jabs beginning this month.

“What Sarawakians need now is decisive leadership, with the core focus of winning over the Covid-19 pandemic,” he pointed out.