COMMENT | A sombre Merdeka Day

COMMENT | The government has slowly eased the standard operating procedure restrictions for those who are fully vaccinated.

At the time of writing, even the Klang Valley, by far the worst hit by the virus, may move from Phase 1 of the National Recovery Plan to Phase 2. Dine-in is now allowed for the fully vaccinated, and slowly people are returning to eateries.

But despite the easing of restrictions, there is still a gloom that hangs in the air. Around the country, there is no sense that things are getting better, but more that things will just have to carry on despite the pandemic.

At the time of writing, Malaysia has logged in 1,725,357 total Covid-19 cases. A total of 16,382 people have died thus far. Despite our relatively high vaccination numbers, daily Covid-19 cases have not shown signs of significant reductions.

Today, Malaysia’s seven-day average of daily new cases is around 21,500. The seven-day average daily death rate meanwhile is around 270 per day.

While the strain on Klang Valley hospitals is slowly easing up, no doubt because of efforts to ramp up vaccination in the region, other states are showing a worrying increase in daily cases, hospitalisation rates and deaths.

The first eight months of the year have seen...