Malacca election: MOH to prepare for the worst, says DG Hisham

Malacca election: MOH to prepare for the worst, says DG Hisham

Covid-19 | Health authorities are highly concerned on how the upcoming Malacca state election may affect the country's Covid-19 situation.

This was especially after seeing the aftermath of the Sabah state election in Sept last year, which sparked the third wave of the outbreak and saw thousands infected by the coronavirus across the country.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said they still hold reservations against holding an election during the pandemic.

“We are to prepare for the worst,” he told Malaysiakini.

“Likewise in Sabah, we advise against an election as we are not out of the woods yet.”

Malaysiakini contacted Noor Hisham to ask for his take on the dissolution of the Malacca state assembly yesterday, which would pave way for a fresh state election that has to be held within the next 60 days.

The dissolution was triggered when four state assemblypersons led by Idris Haron (Umno-Sungai Udang) withdrew their support from the BN-PN state government. The other three were Nor Azman Hassan (Umno-Pantai Kundor), Noor Effandi Ahmad (Bersatu-Telok Mas) and Norhizam Hassan Baktee (Independent-Pengkalan Batu).

Sabah also saw a similar event last year, where a state election was triggered when former Sabah chief minister Musa Aman attempted to engineer a coup to seize control of the Sabah government through defections of government assemblypersons on July 29, 2020.

According to a study, the Sabah election had "seeded" the third Covid-19 wave. It was estimated that the election resulted in 2,979 Covid-19 cases in the first few weeks after polling day.

Asked on whether he fears that it can be worse in Malacca if the election is to be held anytime soon, Noor Hisham said: “During the Sabah election, we have two lower digits (number of cases).”

“Now, Malacca records more than 200 cases on a daily basis,” he stressed.

According to the Health Ministry’s statistics yesterday, Malacca recorded 259 cases daily on average in the past seven days.

Accumulatively, the state recorded 59,610 positive cases since the pandemic hit Malaysia last year.