Army general: Lack of speed, no unified coordination reason behind Malaysia’s failure to fight Covid third wave

KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The lack of unified action and coordination from top brass to bottom is the reason why the country can’t fight the third wave of Covid-19, Head of Management of the Health Services Division of the Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) Brigadier General Dr Mohd Arshil Moideen said.

Astro Awani reported that this, in turn, also contributed to delays in the control, diagnosis and isolation of Covid-19 cases.

“What I see is the absence of ‘unified action’ and ‘coordination’ from the top to down.

“I am commenting from a professional point of view where there are many things that have been decided at the centre, but its implementation is at the level of every other state. Similarly, one state has its implementation in every other district, this is what we can see when there is no ‘unified action’ and ‘coordination’.

“In a war like the war against Covid-19, we need to have a single line of command to standardise strategy that everyone can follow,” he was quoted as saying.

Dr Mohd Arshil added the main problem was also driven by the lack of speed in the control, diagnosis and isolation of Covid-19 cases.

“In the military, we call it speed of action military precision. This is something I know is difficult to do because either we lack resources or maybe certain constraints that we understand the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) and other agencies are facing and are working hard on, but this is the reality.

“From the time we contain, diagnosis and isolation, it is time consuming and not fast enough to curb the spread in areas where the case is too high,” he further said.

Malaysia’s Covid-19 cases recorded its highest numbers today with 9,353 infections, surpassing yesterday’s 9,180.

This will be the third time since the start of the pandemic that new Covid-19 numbers have exceeded 9,000 cases in a 24-hour period, two days in a row, since May 29.

Malaysia’s public health services are also heavily impacted, with hospitals in Klang Valley running out of beds in the Emergency Department and ICUs.

ATM’s has made available the Disaster Management Zone (DMZ) at their Hospital Angkatan Tentera Tuanku Mizan in Wangsa Maju for treating Covid-19 patients in categories four and five, whose number has been increasing in the Klang Valley.