Saving Lives or Saving the Economy?

With MCO 2.0, we have this global debate on the above. Is the debate necessary?

Do we have a correlation between lockdowns and Covid-19 deaths? Wuhan had a total lockdown and deaths reported (or under-reported) were lower than in the U.S. or Europe. Is that our standard?

An economic system is not a light switch, simply switched on and off.  It maybe more like a nuclear power plant that needs time to get to optimum capacity. We were generally getting there by December 2020 but we now have another shutdown.

Of the over 147,000 Covid-19 confirmed cases in Malaysia, only 578 fatalities were reported or about 0.4%. In the U.S. it has been around 2.0% (of confirmed cases). So, over 99.6% of Covid-19 patients in Malaysia did not die. That is because of the good stewardship of the Health Ministry and the hospitals involved – both public and private.

Every job is essential. When MITI classifies what is essential or not affects lives of SMEs primarily in services like hair salons, event management, gyms and others. How do they survive? How do they keep employing their workers? Like it or not, we are an interconnected bunch. So, if employees are WFH, then restaurants and others suffer! Yes, delivery services (Food Panda and the like) blossom but others do not. It is fine for MOH to say MCO 2.0 is likely to be only for 4 weeks. But the repercussion is that we may lose up to RM 20 billion in output. Toyota and Honda assembly plants are now shut because MITI classified them as non-essential.

Consequently, many owners or entrepreneurs suffer from depression, hunger and default on their loan obligations. Surely a more targeted approach on MCO or CMCO will meet both saving lives and saving the economy?

 

Reference:

1.Carmelo Ferlito, Free Malaysia Today, 14 January 2021

2. Yohei Muramatsu, Nikkei Asia, 14 January 2021.