KOTA KINABALU – Malaysia needs another RM5 billion to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, said Warisan president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal.
The former Sabah chief minister said in a statement that the estimate includes expanding contact tracing, monitoring and vaccination programmes to the levels needed to save the economy.
“The only way to save the economy is to curb Covid-19 and the only way to do this is with comprehensive screening and contact tracing measures, before vaccines are available.
“We cannot be too frugal in these two things.”
The Semporna MP said the high Covid-19 infection rate is a signal of a risk that there are many more undetected cases due to the lack of screening.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a rate below 5% for a continuous period as an indicator of an outbreak being under control and as such more efforts need to be made.
“To restore economic activity, we need to target a lower infection rate. For example, South Korea, which struggled with the third wave at the same time as us, now has an infection rate below 1%, which is lower than its highest 3.5%.
“To achieve the same level, we need to target at least 360,000 screenings daily, compared to the 64,000 currently, while maintaining such a level of screening for a period of 60 days.
“It will cost an additional RM2.5 billion while the 2021 Budget only allocates an additional RM475 million for screening tests.”
Apart from that, he said that more health frontliners should also be hired.
“The Covid-19 spread in the city of Daegu, South Korea, with a population of 2.4 million people, was successfully curbed after 2,400 additional health workers were appointed. If implemented in Malaysia, this means we have to appoint another 33,000 frontliners.
“In comparison, the Permai package mentions additional appointments of only 3,500 people.”
Meanwhile, Shafie said rapid and comprehensive vaccination measures are important.
“Although there are statements that are quite convincing, there are doubts about the adequacy of funds, especially for vaccination plans.
“Financial considerations should not be a factor and the government should make it clear that it will not be too frugal in implementing the vaccination programme.
“The economy will not recover until the epidemic is completely under control therefore, balancing lives and livelihoods or signalling fiscal austerity at the moment is a violation of the government’s fiduciary responsibilities.” – The Vibes, February 1, 2021
