MP SPEAKS | Whatever may be the cause of the present flare-up of the pandemic, what must be accepted is that dealing with it, attempting to reduce the number of new cases will cost a lot of money.

This pandemic is peculiar because it prevents normal work from being done. It requires people to distance themselves from each other. The necessary lockdown means no income and for many, no food even. Yet the lockdown is perhaps the only way to prevent exposure to the virus and infection. And infection may mean death.

When we first experienced the attack, the whole country had to accept total movement control. There were no cars on the streets and no pedestrians. After one month we congratulated ourselves on the success of the measure. New cases numbered in two digits and deaths did not exceed ten.

We became overconfident. We believed we knew how to manage the pandemic, and we held elections in Sabah. And since then, we have seen increases in the number of cases to frightening levels. At the peak, there were more than 6,000 a day (May 19, 2021).

We did not learn anything. The month of Ramadan is the month of bazaars. Everybody enjoyed the bazaars. Certainly, many regard the bazaars as a