KUALA LUMPUR – Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Mohd Nor is urging the public not to blame the state government over the recent surge of Covid-19 cases in his state.
Drawing parallels to other diseases, he was quoted in Malaysiakini as saying: “More people die of dengue, cholera, malaria, H1N1 and many other diseases that have no vaccines.
“Eventually, we will have to accept that Covid-19 is among us and not perpetuate stigma around it.”
Sanusi said people who contracted the coronavirus did nothing wrong and should not be treated as “sinners”.
He also said HIV/AIDS patients were “accepted” when some of them might have contracted the disease through “sinful acts”.
“The public now views those who are Covid-19 positive as sinful and worthy of condemnation, including the de facto religious affair minister (who tested positive this week).
“This isn’t HIV/AIDS where the virus spreads through same-sex sexual intercourse which is forbidden and sinful (in Islam) or through injecting drugs, which is wrong by law and harmful to
health,” Sanusi was quoted as saying.
Yesterday, Malaysia recorded 489 new Covid-19 cases with the most infections detected in Kedah, with 153 cases, and Sabah, with 282 cases.
On social media, netizens have assigned blame for the new wave of cases on ministers and politicians who campaigned in the Sabah state elections but did not observe home quarantine
after returning. – The Vibes, October 8, 2020
