Transparency and better communication will ease people’s fear

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah giving his daily press briefing in Putrajaya. Transparency and better and more information from the government will help allay the public's fears during the Covid-19 pandemic. — MOHD SAHAR MISNI/The Star

First and foremost, the Agora Society would like to acknowledge and thank Malaysia’s Health Ministry and healthcare workers for putting in tremendous and admirable efforts in testing, treating and caring for patients while trying to curb the Covid-19 outbreak in our country. As the pandemic continues to unfold, we would like to offer some observations and well-intentioned feedback to the government for consideration.

1) The Health Ministry has repeatedly stated that the national testing capacity for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been increased fourfold from 3,500 tests per day before March 16 to 16,500 tests a day in early April. On April 9, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said through a press statement that the daily maximum testing capacity was 11,546. At the same time, the Health Ministry also published actual daily testing numbers from March 23 to April 8.