Public give positive feedback
AT this time of writing, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide was 22.4 million, and the United States topped the list with over five million cases.
For a country that’s envied throughout the world, especially developing nations, for its worldclass performance in healthcare expertise and services, the US has fared quite badly in terms of its initial response to the pandemic. In contrast, Malaysia, a developing country, has shown exceptional performance.
An online survey we conducted recently, which garnered 738 respondents, revealed an overwhelmingly positive opinion of the public towards Malaysia’s capacity in handling the pandemic.
In particular, the respondents were highly confident of the public healthcare system’s capability in treating Covid-19 patients, with 87% of them saying that good progress has been made in this area.
Indeed, Malaysia has one of the lowest Covid-19 death rates in the world. When compared to South Korea, which is hailed as one of the most successful countries in tackling Covid-19, Malaysia only recorded approximately 1.4% death rate compared to South Korea’s close to 2%. Basically, Covid-19 patients in Malaysia have a higher recovery rate than in South Korea.
Majority of respondents (83.6%) also believed that Malaysia has capable and well-trained healthcare practitioners. Before the pandemic, Malaysians generally did not realise that their public healthcare system was far better than in many developing countries.
However, there was less consensus on the matter of public health guidelines, with just 62% of respondents believing that clear instructions were provided especially in the early days of the movement control order (MCO). This came as no surprise because the government had issued rather ambiguous/confusing guidelines to the public back then.
For example, before the lockdown began, the government announced that people who wanted to travel between states would need permits from their local police stations. This led to crowds gathering at police stations, hoping to get permits to travel to their hometown. This was among the unintended outcomes of such ambiguous directives.
Nevertheless, the government has done well in many other aspects. The proliferation of misinformation on Covid-19 pushed the government, especially the Health Ministry, to run a proactive communication strategy with the director-general of Health Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and his team providing accurate and reliable information to the public via daily briefings to the press.
Dr Noor Hisham has gained respect as a national hero for his ability to stay above politics in carrying out his duty.
In terms of how the political situation played a role in influencing the
Health Ministry’s decisions on Covid19, there was a clear divergence of opinion among the respondents. Some 35.5% believe that Malaysia’s political situation has somewhat shaped the responses of the ministry while 40.5% felt that the political situation did not have any effect.
Actually, Malaysians are lucky that the government has put science above politics and is willing to heed the advice of medical experts, unlike what is happening in the US under President Donald Trump’s administration.
We would like to congratulate Malaysian policymakers for being resolute and decisive in implementing the MCO even when the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases was relatively low and the lockdown strategy was still uncommon throughout the world.
Despite suffering RM63bil losses due to the MCO, the government firmly believed that it was the right decision to make. It understands that the economy can always be rebuilt, but lives lost can never be recovered.