COME June 9, the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) will reach its sunset date.
The government has yet to announce if it will end or extend the CMCO. But "experts" are already lining up on both sides of the divide.
It is a shouting match between the eager economists and the cautious epidemiologists. We rather be with the epidemiologists as there is more science there.
But either way, the standard operating procedure (SOP) must continue because Covid-19 the disease and the virus that causes it have acquired a permanent resident status.
This is no old wives' tale. Consider smallpox. It didn't go away for a century even with the discovery of a vaccine.
What's more, CMCO or not, Covid-19 crosses borders undetected. Wuhan or Wollongong, Covid-19 cares little.
Like the NST Leaders of the past, this Leader counsels caution. Should the CMCO be extended, there needs to be more relaxation of rules, though without compromising on any SOP.
These could be economic or social. There may be something for the economists, business community and investors in the economic plan to be announced on June 6.
We will wait and see. As for the social rules, the government should consider easing the interstate travel somewhat.
Elderly parents have been living alone, with no visit from family members for months. CMCO rules, as presently enforced, only allow interstate visits to ailing family members.
There are pensioners who haven't withdrawn their pensions from the banks for months because there aren't any family members to take them there. It is little things like these that get missed when there isn't a clear channel to raise public concerns.
Daily press conferences do help raise some of these but they are not exhaustive. We understand the reluctance to lift interstate travel though. Malaysia is a nation of "exodus".
Our highways are occasional — the occasions are many — bumper-to-bumper travel tales. We need to change. Covid-19 is, in a perverse way, giving us the opportunity to do so. There may not be another chance.
Two areas cry out for a rethink, and big rethink at that. One is the way we run the economy. The other is the way we treat the environment. The two are connected. First, the economy.
Liberal capitalism as practised today prizes profit over people. This is a fatal model. It may not kill instantly, but it does so slowly and surely. An example will suffice. Take the case of Covid-19 vaccines.
Big pharmacies and private labs are on overdrive developing vaccines for those with deep pockets.
Never mind if part of the funds are from taxpayers money, many of whom do not have that deep a pocket. This is the affliction of an economic model that wants us to leave prices alone.
Covid-19 is telling us if we so surrender to the market, billions of the 7.7 billion people in the world will die at the hand of the disease. The prices of vaccines and drugs aren't the only distortions.
The market has ample examples. Now for the environment. Again, businesses that prize profits are at work here.
Over the years, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest cover has been lost to rampant logging in Malaysia.
Granted that our 18.28 million hectares of forest cover may give us some boasting rights. Be not so quick. Covid-19 tells us those who boast thus miss the forest for the trees.