By Pook Ah Lek, Sin Chew Daily

The movement control order adopted by the government to curtail the spread of coronavirus went into effect from yesterday. Movement control order is not a lockdown, and Malaysians are urged to stay home in order to avoid being infected by the deadly virus. Compared to the complete lockdown enforced in the city of Wuhan and Hubei province of China, we in Malaysia still enjoy some freedom of movement.

Because of lack of more rigorous restrictions on people's movement, we witnessed a massive "balik kampung" exodus on the eve of the implementation of movement control order. Long queues formed outside police stations nationwide as people taking advantage of the 14-day no-work period rushed in to get their passes for interstate travel.

This phenomenon is an apparent departure from the principal objective of the control order. Imagine one or two in the "balik kampung" rush are virus carriers. This also shows that Malaysians generally have very poor crisis awareness and they do not seem to have picked up a lesson from what took place in Italy.

On the government side, the measures taken to fight the virus have come a little too late. This, coupled with the absence of exhaustive planning, incoordination and inconsistent actions among government departments, have given rise to widespread confusion among local businesses and members of the public. Many of the measures announced are ambiguous and people have no way to seek clarification from the relevant authorities, as the National Operations Management Center hotline 03-88882010 is hardly accessible.

As for the "balik kampung" craze, the government has failed to issue an explicit ban beforehand and it is natural for city folks to "flee" the relatively unsafe city. Meanwhile, the higher education ministry has allowed tertiary students to decide whether they want to stay in the hostel or go back to their hometowns. However, some of the tertiary institutions have forced their students to go back. Such incongruous actions have defeated the health ministry's purpose of minimizing human movements within the country to check the spread of virus.

The government's assurances do not seem to work. During the past several days, supermarkets and hypermarkets nationwide were packed to the seams, as people rushed to hoard food items and daily necessities in a frenzied buying that easily eclipsed any festive shopping in the country.

PM Muhyiddin has assured Malaysians of adequate food supply and urged them to stop the panic buying. Unfortunately, many people do not seem to feel safe and they have little confidence in the government's assurances.

The face mask shortage problem, for instance, has been going on for two months now but the previous PH government did nothing to redress the problem while the new PN administration appears to be equally clueless how to fix it.

For fear of being infected, many are forced to buy exorbitantly priced masks from the black market and indeed, many have been cheated into buying products of substandard quality.

By right the new cabinet should be wholly devoted to the fighting of COVID-19 during such a crucial moment and put aside all political war-of-words. Ministers and deputy ministers appointed under Muhyiddin's reward-for-loyalty policy must get down to work and shut their mouths right away, instead of uttering nonsense on things like air hostess uniform and child marriage.

Lest we forget, the country went without a prime minister, and then without a cabinet, when the world was badly hit by the virus outbreak. Politicians were busily engaging in their power-wresting game, such that a mammoth event like that held at Masjid Seri Petaling was allowed to go on when the health ministry was without a commander who could make timely political decisions.

After Mahathir quit as prime minister in late February, people from rival political camps began to jump into action, and the ruling PH administration was unseated at the end of the boisterous week, with a loose PPBM-BN-PAS alliance taking over.

The four component parties of Pakatan Harapan were put together as an expedient move to form a government despite their vastly different own calculations and plans. The hurried marriage between Muhyiddin's PPBM and Umno, PAS and GPS, is nothing more than a power-grabbing deal that is not going to last long.

Soon after the cabinet line-up was announced, Umno's leaders began to express their frustration over the perceived unfair allocation of cabinet posts. Former PM Najib even argued that the current Perikatan Nasional government was not Muafakat Nasional nor BN government, and Umno's support for it had its limits.

After the first confirmed case from the enormous tabligh event at Masjid Seri Petaling was announced, the country has seen three-digit daily increases in the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Nevertheless, our politicians seem to be more concerned about politics than the outbreak. PPBM leaders are still busy preparing themselves for the party's first ever elections and Mahathir has tweeted his decision to defend his chairman post.

Former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad and his deputy Lee Boon Chye, meanwhile, have set excellent examples for our politicians, as they put politics aside and offer their professional advice to the new government.

Second day into the movement control order, there are still plenty of things the government must do. Besides fighting the virus, the new government will also need to take care of the economic aspects and safeguard the well-being of local business owners and members of the public.

It is absolutely essential for the government to have a strong political will to win this battle against the virus, with full cooperation from the rakyat.