This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 8, 2021 - February 14, 2021

LIKE his peers in Singapore and Indonesia, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is expected to be inoculated against Covid-19 on national TV soon after the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrives in Malaysia on Feb 26. That he only needed to test negative for the coronavirus but not serve quarantine before meeting Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta on Feb 5 may well be due to the fact, in part, that Widodo had received his second dose of Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine on Jan 27.

Malaysia should enjoy some semblance of “normalcy” by the third quarter of this year if the national vaccination programme goes well and vaccine supply comes in within the reported indicative timeline (see table).

According to Muhyiddin’s special address last Thursday (Feb 4) before heading for his first official overseas visit since assuming office, Malaysians aged 18 and above should be able to start getting vaccinated in May this year under Phase 3 of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, which will see 500,000 frontliners being inoculated first in March and April under Phase 1.

In Phase 2, some 9.4 million persons above 60 years old and those with underlying health issues and are deemed most vulnerable to the pandemic will be given the vaccine between April and August this year, he added. More than 600 vaccination sites will be opened nationwide, not just public and private healthcare facilities but also stadiums, convention centres, universities, public halls and any other spaces deemed suitable for the gargantuan exercise.

To get 26.5 million people or 80% of Malaysia’s population vaccinated within a year, Malaysia needs to administer 150,000 shots a day (taking into account a second dose). Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, the coordinating minister for the exercise, told CodeBlue in an interview published on Jan 29 that the country hopes to administer 150,000 shots a day by middle of the year and that the first one million doses of vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech will arrive in six batches starting on Feb 26 (144,000 doses a week for five weeks and 280,000 doses in the sixth week) due to limitations in manufacturing capacity.

Dr Khor Swee Kheng, a health systems and policies specialist, calls the government’s target “ambitious”, but said it “could be achievable with the right approach”. “One, the government must prepare for inevitable delays caused by production constraints or other real-world problems. Two, the government must learn from the deployment experiences of other countries, especially in preparing the physical and human infrastructure. Three, the government must build vaccine confidence starting right now,” he tells The Edge.

In fact, the communication campaign to build up what some experts call “vaccine confidence” should have started months ago. “This campaign must be science and evidence-based, but it cannot rely solely on logic and facts. Human emotions and trust in the government are important considerations for the vaccine confidence campaign, and policymakers must understand how human societies truly work and behave,” says Khor.

While achieving herd immunity fast is important, another health policy specialist says there are other important considerations, such as whether the country should just focus on vaccinating those at highest risk of death first versus those who are most likely to spread the disease. Given that vaccines are coming in small batches, policymakers will also need to decide whether more people should be given the first dose or vaccinate fewer people with two doses, he adds.

“The faster herd immunity is achieved the better [but] details matter. How Malaysia chooses to use its initial doses matter a lot,” the specialist says, noting that the government needs to provide greater clarity on who the first 500,000 medical and non-medical frontliners are, given that “not all frontliners are at significant risk of contracting Covid-19 and are at high risk of severe illness or death”. Giving 150,000 shots a day for one year “will require creative solutions and good coordination across public and private [sector players]”.

Achieving good momentum in vaccination would help Malaysia bring down the current third wave of Covid-19 infections, which remain high despite more than three weeks of the second Movement Control Order (MCO 2.0), which allows essential economic sectors to operate. At the time of writing, the seven-day moving average of new Covid-19 cases was still 2.6 times that at the start of the year and 1.8 times the level before MCO 2.0 began on Jan 13.

“There are many factors to explain the rise in cases. Some are ‘good’ factors, like recent increased testing leading to more cases being detected, which is good because we can isolate the patients from infecting other people. Some are ‘not good’ factors, like the government’s reliance on the MCO instead of building and enforcing simple and logical SOPs.

“One important analysis is that we shouldn’t emphasise case numbers in understanding a complex pandemic as it doesn’t tell the whole story and is easily influenced. Instead, we need a ‘set of statistics’ to understand a pandemic holistically and also to hold the government accountable,” Khor says, adding that examples of statistics that policymakers should consistently release should include share of positive tests over total tests, bed occupancy rates in Intensive Care Units for Covid-19, fatality rates and number of affected health workers.

The availability of richer and consistent data to the public can allow independent parties and researchers to come up with evidence-based analysis that can aid policy direction to bring down infection rates and keep them low.

Given that MCO 2.0 cannot continue indefinitely, observers note the importance of adhering to standard operating procedures (SOPs) when it comes to social distancing, the proper wearing of masks and regular hand-washing.

Urging businesses and the public to adhere strictly to SOPs in his special address last Thursday, Muhyiddin noted that 128 clusters came from the manufacturing sector, 82 from the construction sector and 61 from the services sector, without saying how much these clusters have contributed to the total of new infections. As it is, the Ministry of Health only makes specific mention of the number of infections that come from prisons and detention centres regularly.

Even as the battle continues, the fact that Brent crude oil was hovering near US$60 a barrel at the time of writing — some 43% above the US$42 a barrel assumed when planning Budget 2021 last November — gives the government additional fiscal bullets to provide targeted aid to people and businesses still struggling to recover from the hit by Covid-19.

The US$18 difference works out to RM5.4 billion, with every US$1 rise guided to bring in RM300 million more revenue for the federal government — a welcome piece of good news ahead of the unveiling of the 4Q2020 GDP data on Feb 11. This sum is significant, considering that the recently announced RM25 billion Permai assistance package involved a RM6.6 billion direct fiscal injection from the government.

With the government maintaining its 2021 GDP forecast of between 6.5% and 7.5%, the central bank is not expected to revise its forecast just yet despite MCO 2.0 slated to run for just over five weeks from Jan 13 (if it ends on Feb 18). At the official guided cost of RM700 million a day, those 37 days would cost the economy RM25.9 billion or about 1.8% of GDP.

A number of economists have downgraded their 2021 GDP forecast closer to 5%. Those more optimistic, however, may note that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — which expects Malaysia’s GDP to contract 5.8% in 2020 (below official guidance of -4.5%) — still expects the country’s GDP to grow 7% in 2021, even though this is 0.8 percentage points below its projection in October 2020, according to data appended in the January update of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report.

It is, after all, still early in the year and the world is hopeful of seeing a positive impact on the global economy as more countries join the global vaccination race towards achieving herd immunity. More than 107 million doses of vaccines have been administered globally at the time of writing, according to Our World In Data.

Singapore, which is looking to inoculate all 5.9 million of its population by year end, has administered more than 181,000 doses of vaccine, while Indonesia — which is looking to get 181 million people or 70% of its population vaccinated within 15 months — has administered over 648,000 doses so far and reportedly secured at least 28 million doses by Feb 11.

For Malaysia, there should be greater visibility on the national vaccination drive by the time GDP for the first quarter of 2021 is released on May 11, two days before Hari Raya Aidil Fitri. Unless things take a dramatic turn for the worse, Bank Negara Malaysia seems inclined to extend targeted aid rather than resume trimming its overnight policy rate (OPR) that is already at a record low of 1.75% after four consecutive cuts totalling 125 basis points between Jan 22 and July 7 last year. The central bank’s monetary policy committee next meets on March 4 and on May 6 after that.

Last Friday (Feb 5), Bank Negara announced the doubling of the Targeted Relief and Recovery Facility to RM4 billion and the setting up of a RM200 million Disaster Relief Facility in aid of small and medium enterprises affected by the recent floods.

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