- Dr Musa, was yesterday’s announcement what you had expected to see from a National Recovery Plan?
My honest and politically incorrect answer is NO.
The PM has been poorly advised by his team of advisors, the Ministry of Health and the other ministries and agencies which have been at the forefront of the pandemic management.
He has obviously failed to put his ears to the ground and listen to the cries of his rakyat.
He has failed to listen to the many voices outside the MOH, namely the Expert Advisory Group which he himself appointed in March 2021 to counsel him on the way forward to exit the pandemic.
This dream team of experts led by the former DG of Health Tan Sri Abu Bakar Sulaiman have developed a blue print of action which the MOH have stubbornly refused to operationalize. Thus we are stuck with the MOH business as usual mindset.
2. What do you think was the rationale behind the design of the plan?
YB Mr Lim Kit Siang suggested that the National Recovery Plan was a smoke screen to pre-empt the conference of Rulers today. I honestly do not know what was going through their heads. But what I do know is that it was poorly thought-out, it was not founded on good science, there were no stipulated retrospective or prospective COVID data and it was a bad patchwork of cut and paste ideas.
3. You’ve expressed on Twitter that it will not successfully mitigate the pandemic. Can you elaborate on why?
Globally, we are seeing a FLATTENING in the number of COVID-19 cases & deaths.
But the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Malaysia is PEAKING!
Looking at the cumulative cases per million population, Malaysia is the worst performing country in the region
In 2020, we had 113,010 cases.
Up until June this year, we have registered 555,000 cases (83% of total cases)
In 2020, we had 471 deaths.
Until June 2021, we have registered 3,600 deaths (88% of total deaths)
3 factors are responsible for this deadly and disastrous predicament.
And these same failures are being perpetuated in this National Recovery Plan.
Incompetent and untrustworthy political and health leadership and governance
2. A collossal failure of FTTIS
3. A gross failure to ramp up and scale up vaccine coverage
4. The Prime Minister has pointed out that a discernible difference this time around, is that we have vaccines. The timeline for achieving herd immunity however sounds quite optimistic. What are your thoughts on this?
The PM is putting all his eggs in the Vaccine Basket.
Yes! Many countries which have been able to rollout out the vaccine program close to herd immunity have seen precipitous declines in their cases and deaths.
But there are examples of countries who have achieved high vaccine coverage but are facing a tidal wave of COVID-19 cases.
The Seychelles has vaccinated more people per capita than any other country in the world, is seeing rising number of cases
Chile is seeing a spike in cases despite having vaccinated 47% with 2 doses and 14% with one dose of the Sinovac vaccines
The UK which has vaccinated 44% with 2 doses and 17% with one dose has seen an upsurge in cases associated with the Delta variant and has had to delay its opening by 1 month.
I am sorry to deflate the PM’s optimism
5. The health DG has also said that daily screening rates adhere to the WHO’s benchmark, and therefore we’re doing adequate amounts of testing. Is the current rate enough to help achieve the targets in the recovery plan?
I am afraid the health DG is totally mistaken. The 10% positive rate which he often quotes is out of date. Since May 2020, the WHO stipulated that if a country’s positive rate is >5%, the epidemic is out of control. Since May this year our positive rate has been persistently above 5%. Which means we are not testing enough and we are under-reporting the true number of COVID cases in our country.
I hope he and his team in the CPRC would quickly realizes this basic public health error, and start ramping up the test numbers.
6. What sorts of recovery models have other countries put in place that might work for us?
I have summarized the principles of these recovery models in the 11-point Key Performance Indicators of Public Health to mitigate this pandemic.
The first 5 KPI focuses on a speedy and effective FTTIS response
This is the back to basics of effective and efficient Pandemic Management
The next 6 KPI offers tangible metrics which are science based, realistic and doable
If we carefully monitor these datasets it will enable, empower the authorities to:
gradually roll out our economic activities i.e. safety@work
re-open our schools i.e. safety@school
allow more social and sports programs i.e. safety@community
To enable all of these to happen I cannot overemphasize the critical role of data sharing and transparency. We need a digitized and automated FTTIS to:
Find hotspots
Upload Test onto SIMKA and MySJ
To do digital contact tracing
To do digital home monitoring of cases in quarantine
And through slick and savvy Risk Com we need to:
Regain the trust of the rakyat and inspire and empower our fatigued rakyat to comply with the SOPs
7. And last question, what do you think is the utmost priority to help us move towards recovery?
I am afraid there are no quick fixes to this overwhelming crisis
We need competent and trustworthy leaders in the Situation Room aka NSC aka MOH
We need to RESET towards a warp speed FTTIS response
We need real time digital and automated data solutions AND
We need to ramp up our vaccine rollout
*This podcast was broadcasted on BFM: The Business Station: https://www.bfm.my/podcast/evening-edition/inside-story/will-the-national-recovery-plan-solve-our-problems