B I R D Why Malaysia May Fail The Covid 19 War

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The month after Raya will be very critical in determining whether Malaysia will succeed or fail in this Covid 19 war. And the reason for failure can be summarised under this 4 factors B.I.R.D.

B stands for border.  The Indonesian Malaysian borders is extremely porous and almost impossible to seal. The thousands of fishing boats that travels the strait of Melaka as well as the South China sea also act as an illegal conduit for illegal migrants. Malaysia simply do not have the maritime and naval resources to seal these sea lanes effectively. The border between Kalimantan with Sarawak & Sabah are even harder to monitor or seal. These allows continued illegal movement between our 2 countries. That explains why millions of illegal Indonesians are able to enter and reside in Malaysia at any given time. 

I is Indonesia. The Italy of Asia. Many report has indicated that this country will become the Italy of Asia due to their lack of effective lock down and testing resulting in millions of folks exposed to Covid 19. 80% of the imported Covid 19 cases are students back from Indonesia. . While Malaysia  started this Covid war with 33 million PPE for the hospitals, Indonesia had less than 200,000 PPE for all their hospitals. Their healthcare will be overwhelmed and more than 30 doctors , dentist and numerous nurses had died from Covid 19 infection in the past months. And this is only the beginning.

R is Raya . Traditionally many Indonesia goes back home during Raya. This year with so many jobless and running out of food due to MCO in Malaysia , many will try to head back to their village to both celebrate raya as well as wait out our MCO before coming back again after Raya. If only 10% of the estimated 2.5 million Indonesians in Malaysia heads back to Indonesia and than come back again , it will mean potentially an unimaginable number of imported Covid 19 cases after raya . So far around 4.5% of all Covid test turns up +ev in Malaysia and 4.5% of 250,000 is a huge 5000+ cases. The infectivity rate is around 1 person to 2 or 3 ( without MCO which I assume will be lifted partially after Raya)  that means beginning of July, we will have an exponential increase in daily new cases with perhaps thousands of new cases everyday. Our PPE may have run out by than ( DG says will last until only the end of April without new supplies)  which means our hospital will be overwhelmed with many doctors and nurses falling ill and unable to work. So far more than 45 GP has being infected and that number is sure to increase resulting in many clinics closing.

D is National Debt. Without oil revenue and business taxes , our government will not be able to continue providing wage support to the millions of stay at home out of job employees nor companies that employs them. Tens of Thousands of companies will close down resulting in massive job lost and families in distress. Without borrowing even more from say IMF or China, we will not be able to fund the war against Covid 19.  IMF borrowing may  comes with the unthinkable subsidies cut, termination of Bumi preferential policy which our gov most likely will not accept. Thus the only avenue would be China with their very high interest rate. In the long run , we will be colonise or "coronise" economically by PRC due to our massive debts to them. 

China has always eye Malaysia's strategic port due to the Starit of Melaka. 80% of their crude oil passes through this strait and 1/3 of the world's good are shipped through here as well. Controlling this key passage way is thus vital to China's national interest and having a permanent port for  their navy as a counter weight to US's 6th fleet  presence in Singapore is of upmost importance. Thus it is in their interest to help us by applying all the financial and medical helps that we need but at a price. 

Perhaps with piracy increase due to economic down turn in Indonesia, China will have an excuse to step in and begin to patrol this straits and there by help to safe guard our border.

In short , until an effective vaccine or treatment becomes widely available, Malaysia's future will be determine by factors that is beyond her control.

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