CoVid19: It is time to recalibrate & restructure our healthcare facilities & policies.

This lockdown has been going on long enough. 
We are still living from one outbreak to another outbreak.
This is not tenable.

We need to start planning to go back to normal. 

We need to start planning to live with CoVid19. 

We have to start living with CoVid19.

We cannot have lockdown after lockdown.
I repeat, this is not tenable.

We need to start treating CoVid19 like other diseases like the flu, chicken pox, malaria, dengue, etc.

When we have a dengue or malaria outbreak, do we declare war with mosquitoes and commit ourselves to mosquito genocide? 

NO.

Do we stop people from going out at night or to the jungle? 

NO.

We continue on living and just treat people with malaria & dengue, conduct extra fogging & issue out public service announcement on TV and social media. We do not commit ourselves to mosquito genocide or to zero malaria & dengue death. Because we know it is impossible and impractical.

Similarly, every festival holidays, road accidents and related fatalities increase when more vehicles ply the road to go back to kampungs. 
Do we stop people from going back to kampungs every holiday even though road accidents fatalities increase compared to normal days?
NO.

We go on living as normal and just treat those that got injured in car accidents and bury the dead. We put out public service announcement on road safety and have more police patrol and stricter enforcement but we do not aim for zero accidents or zero death because again it is almost impossible and impractical.

There are Ebola & Zika in the African continents.
Do we stop people from going to Africa?
NO.
We let people know the risks before they go.

We have had MERS-CoV in the Middle East.
Do we stop people from going to pilgrimages in Saudi Arabia?
NO.
We dealt with it.

People die of diabetes almost everyday.
Do we ban sugar and food with sugar?
NO.
We educate people about sugar and let them make their own choices.

Same with CoVid19.
We need to start dealing with it.
Living with CoVid19 in our midst.
Just like the flu & the common cold.

How?

We need to recalibrate and restructure our healthcare facilities, specifically hospital beds & ICU wards facilities.

These facilities are provided by government & private hospitals based on the number of deaths and diseases and accidents that happen on an average day.

We have the statistics.

We know the accident rates of injuries & fatalities number.
We know the rate of people dying and requiring treatment from other diseases, heart diseases, cancer, dying old people, etc, on an average day.

From all these statistics, we calibrate our healthcare facilities and plan on the national level how many hospitals, beds, ICU wards we need all over the country.

With CoVid19, even post vaccination, these statistics will increase by a certain number.
The current healthcare facilities does not take CoVid19 into account.
That is why ICU are flooded.

If we take CoVid19 into account, then the ICU beds need to be added.
The healthcare facilities need to be recalibrated to take into account the CoVid19 numbers.

Then, anybody with severe symptoms to CoVid19 will just be treated the same as people that have severe symptoms with flu, pneumonia, diabetes, major strokes, etc.

No more testing, no more contact tracing, no more quarantine for people without symptoms or people who are not sick.

Let people live as normal.

If people get sick, let them rest at home, just like any other diseases such as flu or common cold.

And just like any other diseases or flu or common cold, if they get worse, go to the hospital for treatment.

Or if you are like some people who go to hospitals or clinic even for mild fever or mild symptoms, then continue doing so, and if you feel like it, ask your doctor to check for your antigen.

Everything is voluntary as per before the pandemic.

With this, CoVid19 will be treated as endemic.

You may ask, where to get the money to add all these new healthcare facilities?

How about diverting all the money in setting up all the quarantine centres to set up new ICU facilities.

Get back to normal as soon as possible, recover and grow the economy, and divert all the new taxes from the economic growth to this initiative.

We cannot go on like this, living from one lockdown to another. The suicide numbers is increasing, racing to catch up with CoVid19 death numbers. This is not including death from poverty, which can cause malnutrition & crimes of desperation.

I am not a healthcare expert. This is just a radical idea that pop up in my head after doing my own reading. If you disagree, you can comment and give your own idea. You can challenge this idea or give your own idea. 

This idea may be radical and difficult to implement but not impossible, I think.

I do not know what is the best idea to start going back to normal, but I do know one thing.

We cannot be held hostage by this Corona virus anymore.

We have to suck it up and go back to normal before Malaysia becomes a failed state from this economic lockdown.

Salam.