This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 30, 2021 - September 5, 2021

With Malaysia recording new highs in daily Covid-19 infections as well as deaths last Thursday (Aug 26), the country’s new Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin will be expected to deliver results a lot more quickly than the 100 days that all Cabinet ministers have been given to perform.

While asymptomatic and mild cases made up 97.3% of the 24,599 new record daily infections last Thursday, it is disconcerting that the record number of deaths of 393 includes 100 who were brought-in-dead (BID). Health experts have said the rise in BID cases, many of whom were 

undiagnosed for Covid-19, shows the need for wider, more frequent and cheaper testing.

In Singapore, Covid-19 Antigen Rapid Test (ART) self-test kits are distributed free to all residential households from Aug 28. Given the difference in population size and geography, it would be a lot more challenging for the government to do the same for all Malaysians. What it can and must do, however, is not to let the cost of self-test kits be the reason those in the lower-income group face higher risks of being BID.

The speed at which Malaysia has been able to raise vaccination rates since July is acknowledged and data has shown that vaccinated people are less likely to succumb to Covid-19 and burden frontliners. Already, close to 19 million people, or 58% of the total population (80.9% of the adult population), have had at least one dose of vaccine and 14 million, and 43.2% of the total population (60.2% of the adult population), had completed two doses as at Aug 26.

If Malaysia continues to rank high in the number of deaths per million population even as vaccination rates continue to rise in the coming weeks, however, consumer and business confidence could be hit, putting economic recovery at risk and jeopardising lives and livelihoods. In a tweet last Friday, Khairy rightly described his new portfolio as a “very heavy responsibility”, as Malaysia needs to do much better on Covid-19 — and fast.

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