KUCHING: The move by the federal government to change the yardstick of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) from Covid-19 cases to symptomatic infections is confusing the public.
Batu Kitang assemblyman Lo Khere Chiang said the previous method of using the daily Covid-19 cases is more straightforward and easier to comprehend.
He said however, he was confident that the Sarawak government would consider the change made by the federal government carefully before adopting it.
He was commenting on the recent announcement made by Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz who said the government would use new symptomatic Covid-19 infections to replace the number of daily cases as an indicator for the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
“The approach has been adopted in countries such as the United Kingdom which has allowed the resumption of economic and social activities due to the low number of symptomatic patients despite the high daily infections,” Tengku Zafrul explained.
Lo opined that the system proposed was rather confusing and as a layman, it was preferable to have more straightforward information instead.
“From a layman point of view, I would be interested in knowing how many cases we have every day, cumulative number of Covid-19 deaths as it is easy to comprehend how serious this matter is.
“In my view, I would like to know how many are positive with or without symptoms. Being positively tested for Covid-19 is dangerous as they may infect other people as well,” he explained.