By Athirah Mohammad and Hakim Mahari
Following the emergence of the newly-discovered Omicron variant, any talk of a recovery from COVID-19 appears to be uncertain.
For nearly two years, the world and Malaysia in particular have been engulfed in a pandemic that appears to be never-ending, with frequent pauses and starts of movement control orders (MCOs).
The virus outbreak has not only impacted lives, but has additionally cost many billions of ringgit that caused misfortunes to the Malaysian economy.
Worst, it does not seem things will improve much since 64 Omicron variant cases were detected in the country as of 31 December recently.
Global citizens are apparently encountering fatigue and déjà vu as countries reimpose coronavirus restrictions in the midst of WHO’s warning that the COVID-19’s variant Omicron is a “variant of concern” (VoC).
However, to the optimist, there is some intriguing information which could point towards some degree of recovery, which the government is additionally betting on – stage four of the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
Phase four, being the last phase of the NRP, will empower the complete resuming of the economic and social sector.
The National Recovery Plan (NRP) is a ‘road map’ to control the COVID-19 epidemic while reopening society and the economy progressively towards the new norms.
To be clear, this approach will be measured through three main indicators namely; daily case infection rate, ICU bed utilisation rates, and adult population vaccination rates.
However, the NRP is a dynamic strategy that may be revised as needed based on the latest data and scientific evidence on successful approaches and methodologies, rather than a final and static plan to manage the COVID-19 outbreak.
Undoubtedly, with this approach, the government can get citizen’s support to work together in restoring the country’s health, overcoming illnesses, and resolving the economic challenges caused by the pandemic.
All in all, NRP can be seen as a means by the government to escape from the dark shadow and restore normalcy to its people. This can be done by the transformation of COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic stage.
Transitioning from pandemic to endemic
What does it mean to be in an “endemic” stage? Does this infer that we should exist together with COVID-19 in the future? Will COVID-19 be able to be defeated?
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes an endemic as a disease outbreak that is consistently present but limited to a particular region. This makes the disease spread and rates predictably.
A good example is dengue fever in Malaysia. Since the dengue outbreak in the 1980s, the disease has remained endemic in this country, with no signs of complete eradication.
In the context of treating COVID-19 as an endemic, individuals with mild symptoms such as categories one and two will be considered the common cold. They don’t need to refer to a hospital unless the patient shows more severe symptoms such as shortness of breath.
To be sure, this endemic phase will still be influenced by the extent to which people adapt and adhere strictly to the standards of standard operating procedures (SOPs). There are no plans to stop the practice as long as it is deemed safe.
But for Malaysia, the joy didn’t last long as while we are preparing ourselves, here comes the new variant that is likely to make citizens “have a sinking feeling” about the government’s plan in treating COVID-19 as endemic in our country.
It will be the most dreadful fear among the entire 32 million Malaysian population now because there is a possibility of another round of lockdowns amid the emergence of the Omicron variant in the immediate future after our two-year battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking from the perspective of a citizen, Muhammad Najmi Syahiran who is the assistant sub-editor of Free Malaysia Today, an online news portal, stressed that the Omicron variant can be seen as a new threat for Malaysia to repeat its nightmare – the lockdown.
“The biggest concern is that we don’t want this pandemic to go back to square one which means we have to go through another national lockdown which not only takes days but months to end,” Najmi shared.
He believed that this has become the concern of the citizens as by imposing the national lockdown, many lives will be affected, businesses cannot be run and citizens will lose their income. “Besides, it becomes worse for those who are unfortunate, as among them there are those who become jobless and left behind in education.”
This has led Najmi to highlight the need for the government to take a step ahead together with a standardised planning in handling the outbreak in Malaysia.
“Even though this new strain is still in its infancy, the authorities in charge of combating the pandemic must make it clear that a repeat of last year’s string of lockdowns is not the solution,” Najmi said.
On 30 November last year, Minister of Defence, Datuk Hishamuddin Hussein had made Malaysians thrilled to bits when he announced that the transition to endemic is now delayed due to the spread of the Omicron variant.
It may sound unpleasant but somehow this actually gave us a relief and significantly proved how the National Recovery Plan (NRP) successfully helped the government in saving this country from another lockdown following early precaution that has been taken.
Though it is a bitter truth that we need to digest that the transformation of Malaysia to an endemic phase needs to be paused for a while, the decision was done to ensure that we are able to get on the right track as well as to be prepared for the worst.
Can we imagine if the government did not have a standardised planning on handling this pandemic?
Even though we might not yet achieve the ultimate success in combating this virus, looking towards the freedom of other countries such as Sweden and Australia which currently do not require wearing masks in their daily lives would somehow motivate us in ensuring the NRP to succeed in the future.
We know that another lockdown would do more harm than good. Certainly it is critical to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods, but lives can be better managed without killing livelihoods than otherwise.
As a Malaysian, it is good the see how the government successfully played its crucial role as the “decision maker” in the governance board and came out with the NRP which is supposed to take our beloved country to another phase and to treat COVID-19 as common disease despite we not being able to pursue it for now.
At the same time, we cannot afford to feel too comfortable with the current situation as what was mentioned by Najmi in the interview that:
“Despite NRP already being inclusive, it is not supposed to bring a mutual benefit for both Malaysians and the country itself but also it is significant to ensure that the plan proposed must fit for a long term impact on the citizens as well as the country.”
In ensuring that NRP is going to have great success, communication and coordination are vital in order to execute the plan. On this, it can refer to the quartet ministries which consists of Defence, Health, Finance and Communication as the important agencies in the governments to bring a liaison communication and coordination in handling COVID-19 in Malaysia.
The government needs to find out how to help those who are affected by this pandemic since early March 2020. The government also seems more effective in handling problems at the grassroots that are already expected to happen due to the pandemic. We believe that all parties had learnt a lot from this past two years.
As we always believed that the brighter days will come, Malaysia seems now ready for the next step. With good governance and the cooperation of the public, we would be assured of winning this battle and moving to the endemic phase.
The most crucial question here is, will Malaysia’s transition into the endemic phase for the disease take a shorter time? Or will there be any challenges which make the endemic phase still far away from us to achieve?***
(This is part 3 of the 3-part series of special reports pair assignment on the theme “National Recovery Plan” for Feature Writing class)