Malaysia is entering a new pandemic phase, with four-digit case numbers being recorded for weeks.
Monday's Covid-19 cases at 1,884 were the highest since the disease was first detected here. Are we responding rightly? Yes and no. What is the right approach? It depends.
But one issue is common to all nations around the world: how to strike the right balance between lives and livelihoods. An old Malay adage, made famous today by the Indonesian song Simalakama, expresses the agony of the choice best: ditelan mati emak, diluah mati bapak (loosely translated, "swallow it and you kill your mother, spit it out and you kill your father"). We do not envy the people who lead Malaysia's fight against Covid-19. It may appear at times to be a thankless job. But that is a Leader for another time.
For now, let's start with Wuhan, China, where it all began in the dying month of last year. There was much mystery when a few fell ill after having contracted the virus, later named as SARS-CoV-2. When the infections grew and the number of deaths surged, China sent Wuhan into a lockdown. Commute and commerce were curbed. Containment of Covid-19 was the aim.
The usually holier-than-thou West denounced the measure as a harsh move, saying it was like killing a fly with a hammer. When in March the virus swept across more than 100 countries across the globe, including Malaysia, it was the West's turn to resort to the hammer of lockdown to flatten the coronavirus curve.
As they say in America, you've got to do what you've got to do. As we near a year of the disease, Covid-19 remains shrouded in mystery. As we learn more about SARS-CoV-2, we seem to have a better handle on it.
Still, the Covid-19 carnage is very much around. No country, including China, is out of the woods. With vaccines yet to arrive, it is more of hygiene and social protocols than lockdowns now. It is here that we, at personal and business levels, are failing those who are putting up a tough fight against the pandemic.
Take Monday's 1,884 cases. Of these, 1,067 cases were from 28 Top Glove factories in Klang. Earlier, up to Monday, the Health Ministry screened 5,794 of its workers, of whom 1,889 tested positive. There is something terribly wrong there. Whither hygiene and social protocols, at dorms and factories? Worryingly, construction sites and workers' camps, too, are also turning in scary numbers. They have been for awhile.
A lethal combination of irresponsibility and apathy is at work here. Businesses cannot place its workers in dorms in numbers that do not allow any meaningful physical distancing. What they do not realise is that not only are they making the workers sick but also the businesses. Shutdown, even if for a short period, will come at a cost to the businesses, money which would be well spent on habitable dorms for workers.
We cannot fight Covid-19 if businesses continue to flout standard operating procedures. From what we can tell, the government is trying hard not to impose a nationwide Movement Control Order again.
There are 1,884 reasons for the government to do so. Everyone must help. Given the geometric leap Covid-19 makes, all it takes is one errant person to cancel all the work done to tame the disease. And he will have hell to pay.