Thread by @IMMikhailHafiz

This withering deconstruction of our government's dismal efforts in handling the CoVid-19 pandemic by @NatAsasi highlights the unsustainability of intermittent lockdowns and the devastating effects of such vicious cycles on the citizenry and economy.

thestar.com.my/opinion/column…

"I am not a public health expert, but there’s the slightest possibility that it does not take an expert to see a few patterns with regards to how we have been battling this crisis."

"From a public policy perspective, the problem is most frequently couched in terms of balancing public health versus economic priorities."

"If we shut down sectors of the economy, we reduce crowds, and – as we have seen many times in Malaysia – we bring the Covid-19 numbers down.

The flip side of this of course is that this exerts pressure on Malaysia’s economy."

"In order to relieve that pressure, as soon as we see numbers going down a little, we start reopening the economy.

The flip side of that, meanwhile, is that the Covid-19 numbers invariably go back up."

"Someone once told me: In life, there are two cups of tea – one bitter and one sweet. One way or another, you will have to drink both. You only get to choose which tea you drink first."

"It feels like we are choosing to drink the sweet tea first, only to find ourselves thereafter drinking the bitter tea of climbing Covid-19 numbers."

"The impression I get is that countries that have successfully contained Covid-19 are those that have really gone all out – countries that have imposed the strictest lockdowns, for the longest periods of time, at the earliest possible stage."

"In such countries, restrictions are finally eased when the numbers become little to nothing, but are then very quickly reinstated at the slightest hint of trouble.

This strikes me as the kind of vigilant, disciplined approach that has clearly been proven to be successful."

"In Malaysia, our problem seems to be one of half measures.

We seem to only be willing to impose strict measures for very short periods of time.

Even the economic arguments for reopening so many things so quickly seems to have a fatal flaw."

"If we half-heartedly implement half-measures and reverse those measures before the cases are brought down to a sufficiently low number, we are in fact perpetuating both the public health and economic crisis."

"Our approach is like insisting on discharging a sick man from the hospital before has fully recovered, and forcing him to work. This results in him falling sick again, and eventually being put back in hospital.

This cycle is then repeated again and again."

"Other countries wait for the sick man to fully recover, no matter how long and difficult the process is. When that man is finally discharged, however, he is genuinely recovered and does not keep ending up back in hospital."

"I am also wary of the idea of believing that “sufficient adherence to SOPs” will allow for safe reopening of certain sectors."

"From my observations, SOP guidelines are ineffective. Partially because they don’t go far enough, and more so because compliance is essentially impossible to properly enforce."

"Perhaps the only way to really bring numbers down is to prohibit almost any activity that involves big crowds."

"I won’t be happier than anyone else about measures like these, but this is exactly the type of bitter tea that we need to swallow, if we ever want to get out of this see-saw Covid-19 numbers, and bring the numbers down to levels that are sustainable over the long term."