COVID-19: Full MCO or self-lockdown?

With the spike in daily COVID-19 cases exceeding 6,000 cases, maybe it is time for Malaysians to take the initiative to take care of their own health and safety, along with their families, and not merely rely on the government solely to curb the spread of COVID-19.

With the passing of each day, the data shows a drastic rise in cases, together with new variants that are not fully understood even by experts. To top it all off, Malaysia registered a new record high in daily cases today, with 6,806 new cases.

Public health medical expert Assoc Prof Dr Azimatun Noor Aizuddin said imposing a lockdown on your own, or self-lockdown, is among the best choices to balance the health of Malaysians with the negative economic impact.

The Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia medical faculty social health department senior medical lecturer said everyone knows the risks if the government implements a full Movement Control Order, especially for the economic sector.

"Everyone has an important role to play currently to ensure victory over the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The government as the country's leadership must also consider both positives and negatives of every action taken, while Malaysians can help and play their part to ensure the best for themselves, their families and the country," he said when contacted by Bernama today.

The hashtag 'Road to 10k (10,000)' has been trending on Twitter recently, which is a reference to 10,000 daily cases, and can be viewed as form of public disappointment over the recent development of the pandemic in the country.

Elaborating, Azimatun said the standard operating procedure (SOP) outlined cannot be considered as entirely new norms but norms that can be improved and added onto according to the suitability of the current situation.

"The virus is very dangerous and the SOP set needs to be backed up with laws as there are those who take this matter lightly," he added.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry tweeted today encouraging the public to practise self lockdown to break the COVID-19 infection chain.

The suggestions include doing grocery shopping once a week, filling a full tank of petrol for your vehicle, and conducting solat prayers with your family at home.

In addition, the ministry also suggested optimising online purchases and not entertaining guests at home.

In the meantime, Chairman SAMENTA Central, Datuk William Ng said a full lockdown as proposed by some quarters would render tens of thousands of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) insolvent, which in turn would lead to another round of retrenchment.

"The damage to our economy would be irreversible, especially at a time when we are preparing for a recovery as the national vaccination roll-out continues.

"We stand in solidarity with other trade associations such as Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM), American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) and EUROCHAM in opposing a full lockdown," he said.

Center for Market Education chief executive officer (CEO), Dr Carmelo Ferlito said there were debates about full lockdowns stopping the virus from spreading and it might make sense to sacrifice something for the greater good.

"But, unfortunately, it has been demonstrated by tens of scientific papers (and by simple statistical observations) that lockdowns do not work, they just delay the problem, at the very best. No western country has defeated Covid-19 with lockdowns. They tried and failed," he said.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the government needed to be strict and introduce a full lockdown to achieve success like the first MCO in March last year.

"We need to confine people to their homes. There should not be any excuse for crowds to form. Staying apart must be applied even among the frontliners.

"Whatever may be the cause of the present flare-up of the pandemic, what must be accepted is that dealing with it, attempting to reduce the number of new cases will cost a lot of money," he said in a statement today.

Dr Mahathir added that the vaccination programme must be sped up and the people have to accept whatever vaccine used in other countries. In many countries, even though the first vaccine dose reduced the number of new cases, those who were vaccinated needed to be tested again.

IKATAN Malaysia youth wing (DPIM) chief Shahrir Adnan concurred, and said that any MCO needed to be as strict as the first MCO to reduce the number of cases drastically, adding that Malaysians are tired of MCOs that go on without any real reduction of daily cases.