KUCHING: Any suggestion of a full lockdown at this juncture would be an "outdated" approach without due consideration on the high vaccination rate in Sarawak.

Sarawak Business Federation (SBF) secretary-general Jonathan Chai said he would support the call for a complete lockdown if the vaccination rate was low and daily positive cases were on the rise.

But, the state had already entered into a different phase of containing the outbreak and a different strategy must be adopted, he told the New Straits Times.

"We should accept the reality that no matter how much we succeed in controlling the pandemic from the aspects of fatalities and hospitalization rates, Covid-19 will be endemic and we need to learn to live with the virus." 

Chai said any prolonged or full lockdown would not make the virus disappear but would only delay the recovery of our economy and detrimentally impact the livelihoods of the people, especially the B40 group who depended on the sustained businesses to keep their jobs.

He was commenting on the call made by Sarawak's Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) secretary Andrew Lo, urging the government to impose a total lockdown after the state recorded the highest number of daily Covid-19 cases, overtaking Selangor.

Chai said from the business community's perspective, most of the players would not be in favour of a total lockdown.

"Personally, I think a complete lockdown may not be a viable solution to address the spike of positive cases in Sarawak, instead it will definitely adversely impact our already fragile economy."

"We should have learnt from past experiences after going through the previous lockdowns, which had not helped much in bringing down the number of daily Covid-19 cases."

Sarawak, he said, had registered an increase in the number of positive cases lately, the spike in the number of cases in the state should not overshadow the fact that vaccination had been helpful and instrumental in mitigating and reducing the severity of the virus infection and the need of hospitalisation in the event of an infection.

In addition, Chai said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin recently had announced that steps were being taken by the government to prepare a new set of standard operating procedures (SOP) to guide the public on living with Covid-19 as the virus becomes endemic.

"This is consistent with the approach that has been taken by several other developed countries where they have moved from the pandemic measures like total containment to accepting it as an endemic."

"I understand the concerns of the people following the spike of the Covid-19 cases recently due to the presence of the Delta variant. But, vaccination and strict compliance of the SOP are still the sensible and pragmatic approach to deal with the virus as we regard it as endemic now."

Also, he said it would be helpful to alleviate the financial burden of the businesses in the event if any business had been ordered to close down temporarily because of many positive case in the workplace or any employee is placed under quarantine.

"I agree with MTUC on the proposed formula that the government should provide one-third wage subsidies; employer to pay one-third and the employee to sacrifice one-third of the wages, subject to minimum wage of RM1,200," he said. 

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/09/725420/total-lockdown-outdated-approach-curb-covid-19-says-sarawak-business