‘There is much misunderstanding about the Covid-19 situation in the country. In particular, the high rates in the Klang Valley and the role of the only state task force, the Selangor Task Force on Covid-19 (STFC)...
‘In many ways, if the STFC had not stepped in, did mass testing, rolled out POIS (Prevention of Outbreaks at Ignition Sites), allocated Z millions for FTTIS (find, test, trace, isolate, and support), the situation in Selangor would be far worse, critical even...
‘And other states, industries, agencies, etc, are buying in STFC’s POIS programme and implementing it. This tripartite initiative between government-industry-NGOs pivots on three preventative strategies namely, enhanced public health measures, early detection testing regime and health education. So STFC doesn’t just talk but rolls out programmes, mass testing, POIS, procuring vaccines, etc, to end the pandemic...
‘At the end of the day, we are in it together. If we refuse to learn from each other and operationalise the best public health practices, we are in for a rough ride.
‘I hope the national task force, as petitioned by the 46 top physicians, is rapidly recognised, accepted, and formalised to empower it to immediately re-strategise and transform the mindset, and policy at the top end of the Health Ministry, so that the operations at ground zero will be a truly rapid-response FTTIS which has zero-tolerance for cases, clusters or outbreaks.
‘MCOs are the blunt tools of those who have failed to operationalise the back-to-basics of pandemic management and in my opinion, they should either seek a second opinion from the task force and/or gracefully exit to minimise further harm to the nation and allow the task force to steer the nation out of this Covid-19 conundrum and to protect the lives and livelihood of its rakyat.’
Read here (Malaysiakini, Jan 30, 2021)
