- nabalunews
SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY, INCOHERENCE, AND DESPAIR
27 June 2021
I do not want to belabour on what the government needs to be doing to continue to manage the pandemic and attend to getting vaccines into people's arms.
But please do so in a coherent and efficient way.
Please do not, on a daily basis, suddenly, think of, different, and diverse groups, to vaccinate especially announced by every abah, kakak and adik in government every other day.
Do have a total picture of the profile of sectors of society to be vaccinated not just pick out pieces as and when it comes to mind!
Plan at one go vaccination approaches for each identified sector group, within society so that the appropriate approaches can be undertaken
For example:
- Gathering them on the orderly basis where they are,
- Or sending mobile vaccination facilities to them.
- All should be done at the grassroots level. To prevent the movement of more people.
The groups are, amongst others, for example:
- Schools including teachers and school support staff (yet unvaccinated)
- Old folks home and other similar facilities
- Factories, to vaccinate workers. So that they can continue to operate, to fulfill key market demands.
The onus should be on the factory management, to ensure every employee is vaccinated and provided with all the safety Covid-19 precautions, as per the prevailing sops.
On lockdowns
Please do not announce " lockdowns " at the last hour”. Especially when there was already an earlier end date.
Many, especially Small Medium and Enterprise (SMEs), own-account workers, and businesses in general, would have made plans.
- To make new investments
- To begin operations, as per sops hiring anew even.
- and all these decisions have positive spinoffs into society and the economy.
The infection rate is, as we have seen, volatile fluctuating on a daily basis.
4, 000 yesterdays, 3399 today, 4003 per day.
So do we do the Mexican shuffle approach to determining lockdowns?
Based upon whether it's 4000, 3099, or 4003 cases??
Please do have meaningful analysis and measures that are logical.
It is clear that the micro-enterprises, and entrepreneurs, such as operating various stalls, have been very hard-pressed, to earn their daily keep.
Please remember we need to give them the means to fish not dishing out fish now and then, in the form of the cash handouts.
They need to be sustained over the longer term!
Why not have a special policy such as:
1) Set aside proper areas for them to operate in one area, to be segregated as per SOPS by type of business such as food/attire/ fresh items/home use items.
2) Ensure SOPs are enforced on both vendors and customers such as waiting areas, spacing of lines to make purchases, and wearing a mask is compulsory.
Give them special free permits to do business. Identify which categories of businesses can be allowed to operate, with well-enforced parameters of safety and security, in the context of the Covid-19 environment.
Restaurants can do takeaway and delivery services these small businesses cannot!
No one wants to see the pandemic continue to prevail. God willing, we can manage it.
But it is very important that incoherent policy measures, and endless politicking, do not kill the nation more than what the Covid-19 does!
National recovery plans are not about recovery "from Covid-19", it is about parallel planning of how to ensure that the society and the economy, can begin to function in an effective manner, along with common sense and logical timelines.
Lift the emergency, reconvene the parliament so that the country and the people can actually feel that sense of normalcy happening.
There must be coordination of policies and approaches between the federal government and all the state governments.
We are one nation Malaysia! Only then can there be coherence in managing the pandemic.
After all, except in Putrajaya and the federal territories, all economic activities are at the state, and district levels.
Yes, we have the lockdowns on movement and activities, but please don’t allow there to be lockdowns of common sense, rational thinking, empathy and understanding and of minds, that cannot allow some to think and act coherently.
No matter how many ministers show themselves "pitifully" eating instant noodles!
These are not times for " photo ops" or " public commas " to earn brownie points.
Please focus on the interests of the people and nation not to be self-serving.
It is said that statesmen do not think of the next elections but of the next generation and our next generation has lost more than a year. In education, skills enhancement, and opportunities.
Tan Sri Rafidah Azis
