Dr Musa Mohd Nordin, Paediatrician
Asst Prof Mohammad Farhan Rusli, Public Health Physician
29 May 2021
It’s WAR!
Kuasa Dalam Tangan
We’ve Done it Before
Teruskan Perjuangan [1]
Desperate times calls for desperate measures, albeit some anti-COVID-19 strategies are smarter and more effective than currently practiced.
Two immediately comes to mind. The critical need for a Rapid Response Find-Test-Trace-Isolate-Support (FTTIS) pandemic management. [2,3] And a Warp Speed Vaccine Rollout Program to achieve population immunity. [4]
Now that the “total lockdown” has been declared, effective from 1 June 2021, we must fully utilize this “circuit-breaker” to RESET our public health strategies to ensure that the lockdown is optimized with science-based anti-COVID-19 interventions, sanitized from political filth and nuances.
Our rakyat quarantined at home, needs to be protected, at this critical juncture when the number of sporadic cases in the community is spreading like wildfire, by ramping up testing to ensure that people at home, do not die at home.
The increasing number of persons Brought In Dead (BID) is an extremely worrying trend. Triaged, mass testing, rapid isolation of cases and the provision of appropriate support is key to breaking the chain of viral transmission.
The lockdown respite must also be effectively used to clear up the backlog of contact tracing, enhance backward and forward tracing with digitized and automated FTTIS and to ensure that the epidemiological link is detected so that we may return to mitigation and containment.
The MOH and JKJAV needs to operationalize many of the doable ideas that have been articulated by various experts from outside their circle of experts. It is not rocket science actually, but practical, run-of-the-mill, best vaccination practices. A smart partnership between the public and private health care sectors is vital to ensure a warp speed vaccine rollout, scale up coverage of the population, and preserve equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines.
We must quickly learn from all the good interventions which others have done to tame the coronavirus. We need to shift our attention from disinfection of surfaces to better ventilation of our spaces. Can we not empower our rakyat with self-risk assessment and community camaraderie instead of being punitive, arrogant and patronizing? Can we embrace distributive justice and cast a wide social security net to protect the poor, needy and marginalized communities?
The nation is now at the precipice of an unprecedented national catastrophe. Our rakyats’ lives, livelihoods and the nation’s socio-economic fate is at stake. The nation needs an astute, smart and determined health and political leadership and governance to win this WAR.
The WAR is for real. Unless we genuinely harness the whole-of-government and whole-of society approach, we will slide down the slippery slope into the abyss of a failed nation.
It’s WAR!
Kuasa Dalam Tangan
We’ve Done it Before
Teruskan Perjuangan
References:
1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Opg76vmKqWA&feature=youtu.be
2. https://drmusanordin.com/2021/05/14/a-plan-to-exit-the-covid-19-pandemic/
3. https://drmusanordin.com/2021/01/15/fttisi-the-bedrock-of-covid-19-infection-control/
4. https://drmusanordin.com/2021/05/12/towards-a-warp-speed-vaccine-rollout-dr-musa-mohd-nordin-mohammad-farhan-rusli-dr-zulkifli-ismail/
* Illustration by Cel Gulapa
