Lui
KOTA KINABALU: The government should focus on ramping up vaccination drive to attain herd immunity, as opposed to focus on imposing Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) on localities with Covid-19 outbreaks.
Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KKCCCI) president Datuk Michael Lui said the EMCO did not only affect people’s livelihoods and economic activities, but was also ineffective in curbing the growing number of infections nationwide, including Sabah.
He believed that speeding up vaccination to cover at least 50 per cent of the adult population should be the priority now.
He pointed out that the escalating Covid-19 cases and prolonged movement control have adversely affected the economy, businesses and families.
He said many retailers that were banned from operating were facing serious financial issues.
“Businesses are confronted with their biggest challenge to survive since the formation of Malaysia.”
Lui said small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have suffered a total loss of RM40.7 billion last year as a result of the nationwide strict lockdown order.
He said close to half of the SME sector, or 580,000 businesses, are at risk of closure by October if they are not allowed to open up their operations by then, which would have a damaging impact on the economy and wellbeing of the people.
He said Covid-19 was like to become endemic and the people must learn to co-exist with the virus.
“The government should seek a balance solution and enhanced standard operating procedures (SOP) to speed up the reopening of businesses and economic activities.”
On the other hand, Lui said the government’s decision to use the new symptomatic Covid-19 infections to replace the number of daily cases as an indicator for the National Recovery Plan (NRP) would balance reality and the people’s needs.
Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said on Saturday that the National Recovery Council decided that the threshold will be no more than 2,000 symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation in order to move from Phase One to Phase Two of the NRP, or approximately 6.1 cases per 100,000 residents.
The limit will be 1,000 cases in order to transition to Phase Three and 400 cases to move into the fourth and final phases of the plan.
However, the move will only take effect in Phase One locations where 50 per cent of residents have been fully vaccinated.
Lui said the daily cases were less significant when at least 50 per cent of the adult population have been fully vaccinated because most cases were asymptomatic or showing only mild symptoms, which also alleviate the burden on the public healthcare system.
Nevertheless, he said the 100.94 per cent usage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds nationwide and reports on seven states and a federal territory surpassing 100 per cent utilization rate of ICU showed that our country still has a way to go to achieving the NRP targets.
Lui said the prolonged lockdown was not only ineffective in curbing the spread of Covid-19, but also harmed the economy and suggested the government to consider choosing the lesser of two evils.
He believed that the number of severe Covid-19 cases and mortality rates would be under control by September with implementation of the vaccination programme.
“With a rate of administering 450,000 doses of vaccine daily, the country will be able to fully vaccinate 60 per cent of the adult population in September and eventually putting on end to the nationwide lockdown.”
With the new yardstick for NRP, he said the government would be able to reopen more economic sectors and allow businesses whose employees were inoculated to operate in order to the economy back on track.
As the economic sectors were interconnected in the supply chain, he said the government ought to formulate a standardized SOP for economic sectors that were allowed to operate and eliminate the need for such businesses to apply for the reopening of their premises.
He said the government should not differentiate between essential and non-essential services sector because all economic sectors were interconnected in the supply chain.
Lui also said that the people and government should work together in overcoming these trying times.
“The people’s biggest wish is for the pandemic to end and businesses activities to resume to restore their livelihoods.”