Mahia & Ministers - Incompetence, Arrogance, Data Manipulation & Cover-Up

New Records Of Covid Cases & Deaths – Proof Of Incompetence, Arrogance, Data Manipulation & Cover-Up

It took hours of virtual meeting that began at 8.30pm on Wednesday (July 7) and stretched till the early hours of Thursday (July 8) for UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to make a simple decision, which was actually long overdue. But the withdrawal of UMNO’s support, which was half-baked itself, for Prime Minister Muhyiddin was not the most shocking news.

The most shocking news was the sudden hive of activity at Muhyiddin’s residence on Thursday. We’re not talking about the breach of standard operating procedures (SOPs). Everyone knows the ministers and VIPs can meet anytime they like, but kind-hearted good Samaritans who distributed food aid for the poor and hungry are slapped with fines for violation of lockdown.

We’re talking about the prime minister’s childish game of hiding behind diarrhoea to avoid meeting the Agong (King). Should not Mr Mahiaddin still in hospital for bowel problems? After all, if the government deemed it was critical to inform the world that the Malaysian leader was incapacitated with diarrhoea, it would be crucial to also tell all and sundry that he has recovered.



The fact that PM Mahiaddin was suddenly at home, desperately counting his chicken for support to cling to power, is proof that his bowels are in pristine condition. But if he could pull such a silly stunt just to avoid the monarch, he could certainly cook and manipulate Coronavirus data to either project a deterioration or an improvement of the pandemic to suit his needs.

On the same day the illegitimate prime minister continues to cling to power, despite having lost his legitimacy after UMNO’s withdrawal, the country saw 135 Covid-19 deaths – the highest since the pandemic started last year. To add salt to injury, the new daily infections spiked to 8,868 – up from 7,097 a day earlier (Wednesday) – the second-highest daily cases since 9,020 cases recorded on May 29.

Today (July 9), the country strikes another new record for the wrong reason – 9,180 new daily infections over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 817,838. Active cases stand at 80,665 with 959 in the ICU (intensive care unit) and 465 in need of respiratory assistance. Another 77 deaths were reported, pushing the death toll to 5,980.



This brings up the burning question – why the Covid-19 cases continue to surge despite increasing rate of vaccination? If you care to look at other countries – the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Singapore – the patterns show declining daily cases as vaccination increases. There’s a reason why the UEFA Euro 2020 is in full blown while Malaysia is blowing hot air.

Taking credit to boost his plunging popularity, PM Muhyddin bragged on Monday that his regime has successfully achieved a vaccination rate of more than 300,000 doses a day. Based on the 313,761 doses administered that day (July 5), he expressed his confidence that his National Recovery Plan was on the right track. In fact, 376,909 doses of Covid-19 vaccines were given yesterday (July 8).

As of yesterday, 7.22 million people (22.6% of the population) have received at least 1 dose of vaccines, while 3.19 million (10%) are fully inoculated. In total, 10.41 million Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered. Yet, the daily infections and deaths did not reflect the effect of the vaccination. Instead, the chart somehow shows correlations between Covid new cases with political development.



From its peak of 9,020 daily infections on May 29, there had been decreasing number of cases to as low as 4,949 – until June 16. During this period, Muhyiddin, who had pledged not to fully lock down the country, made a last minute U-turn and declared a nationwide full lockdown from June 1 to 14. Subsequently, the half-baked full lockdown was extended for another 2 weeks to June 28.

On June 16, however, King Sultan Abdullah, after an emergency meeting with his brother rulers, decreed that not only the current State of Emergency will not be extended after its expiry on August 1, but also that the Parliament must reconvene. Daily Covid cases shot up, but slowed down after the government decided to ignore the royal decree, ridiculing the “as soon as possible” royal statement.

Ten days later (June 26), daily cases shot up again after the King summoned both the Dewan Rakyat (Lower House) and Dewan Negara (Upper House) Speakers due to insults over the royal decree. After the royal audience on June 29, where both Speakers changed their tune and urged PM Mahiaddin to reopen the Parliament, daily cases climbed to above 6,000 – and stayed there until July 5.



On Monday (July 5), UMNO leaders started their mega meeting as a 14-day deadline given by the party president Zahid Hamidi to Muhyiddin government to reconvene Parliament expires. The next day, the Covid-19 daily cases burst to 7,654. Of course, on Thursday, after Zahid declared the withdrawal of UMNO support for the regime, the country saw 8,868 daily infections.

As former Prime Minister Najib Razak and Zahid increase their attacks on the fragile government, along with uncertainty over the fate of the backdoor government, today’s cases conveniently shot up to a new record of 9,180. Clearly, it doesn’t make sense that as the vaccination rate escalates exponentially, the daily new cases also skyrockets at the same rate.

Sure, one may argue that it could be due to increase number of testing, especially in the state of Selangor. However, the mass community testing or screening did not happen yesterday, but has been ongoing since May 8 in Selangor, before the same exercise kicked off on June 4 in Kuala Lumpur. Exactly how could the cases fluctuate from 9,000 to below 5,000, only to skyrocket to 9,000 again?



If the infections could still jump to record highs even after 22% population are protected with at least 1 dose of Covid vaccines, can you imagine the scenario had the inoculation remained at below 10%? Even then, it was only after pressure from hungry and angry people that the despicable Muhyiddin was forced to expedite the vaccination program.

Data manipulation can be as easy as increasing or reducing daily testing, or delaying testing results to suit the selfish purpose of the backdoor government. However, at this stage, it’s no longer about cooking data alone. Exploiting data is just one of the factors. Prior to the current full MCO or FMCO, there were MCO 2.0 (introduced on Jan 11) and MCO 3.0 (started on May 6).

In short, the country has been under half-baked lockdowns since January this year. It means even after more than 6 months of MCO, EMCO, CMCO, RMCO, FMCO and finally the newly introduced phase-based MCO lockdown, they have all failed. Yes, 6 months had been wasted because the clueless and useless regime did not listen, refusing to fully lock down and bite the bullet as early as January.



It was already too late when MCO 3.0 (May 6) was announced, let alone the FMCO (June 1). The opening of Ramadan bazaars on April 13 was the happiest day in the life of Covid-19. To add fuel to the fire, Senior Minister “turtle egg” Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that bazaars nationwide – numbering 1,073 in total – were allowed to operate until 2am.

Not to be outdone, Higher Education Minister Noraini Ahmad dropped more gasoline to the fire. Students at all higher educational institutions were allowed to return to their hometowns as part of the traditional “balik kampung” exodus for Hari Raya Aidilfitri, except those from Sarawak. The brilliant plan would allow an estimated 103,994 students to travel interstate, potentially infecting the entire nation.

When the Hari Raya celebration officially kicked off on May 13, the police did not seriously block people from travelling either inter-district or interstate for obvious reason. On May 30, “turtle egg” Sabri amusingly said he had no idea how 200,000 people managed to evade the police roadblocks to return to their home towns for Hari Raya celebrations. The actual numbers could be higher.



The country is paying the price now because Muhyiddin wanted to please his vote bank – Malay Muslims – with the grand opening of Ramadan bazaars and closing one eye to people travelling interstate for Hari Raya festival. The charts clearly show both spikes in Covid infections as a result of Ramadan bazaars and Hari Raya celebration have not subsided ever since.

After blaming the people for violating lockdown SOPs, the Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is now blaming South Africa and Indian variants, known as Beta and Delta respectively. But how did the variants arrive in the first place? The answer – Delta variant could have infiltrated the country undetected thanks to Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong.

On May 19, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd proudly announced a total of 2 million passengers recorded for the month of April. Astonishingly, despite claims of continued interstate and international border closures, somehow 548,000 international and 1.4 million domestic passengers were allowed to depart or arrive in April.



With 548,000 international passengers entering Malaysian airports in April alone, what are the chances that not a single virus of the Indian variant managed to breach the local scanning and monitoring? The best part is it was only on May 18 that Dr Noor Hisham expressed his concern over the emergence of new Variants of Concern (VOC).

He admitted the presence of the South African “Beta” variant (B.1.351), the United Kingdom “Alpha” variant (B.117) and the Indian “Delta” variant (B.1.617.1) in the country. Worse, Dr Noor also revealed that the mandatory quarantine period for travellers from countries with VOC transmission has been extended to 14 days only since April 28.

It means most of the 548,000 international passengers who arrived in the month of April had escaped the 14 days quarantine rules and could potentially spread the Alpha, Beta or Delta variants in the country. And we have not even talked about the months before April. Here’s another best part – the government barred non-Malaysian travellers from India to enter the country only after May 7.



Therefore, the forever high daily Covid infections could be due to three reasons. First – the government manipulates and cook data about the actual cases to suit its needs. Second – the daily vaccination is lower than the reported figures to pacify the general public. Third – Covid variants have been in the country for months without the government realizing it, or deliberately hide it.

And the deadly variants like Delta have started to spread and kill only after the Ramadan bazaars and Hari Raya celebration, where at least 200,000 people evaded the police roadblocks to return to their home towns throughout the nation. The only reason why Selangor and Kuala Lumpur topped the chart of infections is because of mass testing and screening.

If the same massive testing is carried out in other states, the total numbers will be even higher, something that the regime wanted to avoid at all cost. Like it or not, more people are dying today than it should because not only the clueless and incompetent Perikatan Nasional government dragged its feet on vaccination, but it also did not bother to do mass testing when the daily infections were at a manageable level.



Yes, as early as April 2020 (that’s last year), celebrity Dr Noor Hisham said – “We are learning from Singapore, our migrant workers, we are embarking on a big scale screening of our migrant workers”. Yet, till today, more than 15 months later, it’s still unclear if the government had conducted any mass testing on migrant workers. It has been the Selangor state government that initiated mass testing since May 8 this year.

It appeared that after the country recorded only one new Covid-19 case on July 1, 2020, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 9,002, Dr Noor and the government became complacent and arrogant. The Health Ministry had forgotten and ignored their promise to conduct a mass screening. They chose to prolong the inevitable, a decision that has backfired today.

From 9,002 total cases and 125 death toll recorded on the day Dr Noor described as historical, proudly holding a poster showing the “1 case” on July 1 last year, the country has since recorded 817,838 total cases and 5,980 death toll today – about 1 year later. Had Malaysia blindly copied what Singapore has been doing, the situation would not have been so devastating.



Thanks to the Muhyiddin administration, the country is today in deep trouble. It did not do enough Covid testing when it had the time to. It dragged its feet on vaccination when daily infections fell below 2,000. It refused to fully lockdown when it had the chance to during MCO 2.0 in January. It allowed millions of foreign passengers to depart or arrive at a time when the airport should be closed.

It manipulated data for political and self-indulgent purpose. It allowed Ramadan bazaars and 200,000 people travel interstate during Hari Raya festival. It quietly approved 128,150 companies to operate even during the full lockdown. And now that the Delta variants are here, all hell breaks loose because the country is caught unprepared due to complacency, incompetence and arrogance.

Even with the surge in daily Covid cases, patients lying on camp beds outside the hospital’s emergency department, and dozens of problems stacked against it, the religious authorities announced that mosques will be allowed to reopen. At the current rate, the total Covid-19 cases will definitely breach 1-million and the death toll will probably hit 10,000.