Sarawakians United peoples’ party (SUPP ) Secretary General, Datuk Sebastian Ting said there is no urgency to have our Sarawak election as we are still busy fighting the COVID-19.

He said the safety and lives of our people must always remain to be our number one priority and as such must take precedence over anything else.

The current DUN will be automatically dissolved after emergency ends on August 1, 2021. After that, Election Commission would have to decide when to hold the Sarawak Election.

This coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 is indeed a once in a century pandemic. The last time was back in 1918 when we had influenza pandemic that spreaded worldwide during 1918 to 1919. About 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with the influenza virus.

In comparison, over the duration of one and a half years, COVID-19 has infected more than 195 million people and more than 4.1 million deaths worldwide.

“According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, COVID-19 has caused a loss of more than USD 4 trillion to global GDP for the years 2020 and 2021 from the pandemic’s direct impact on tourism and other sectors closely linked to tourism. In many cases, the pandemic has harmed people’s livelihood and health.

No country could have predicted and prepared for such pandemic. It really caught us by surprise but we were lucky that since 1918, we had advanced tremendously in biotechnology and vaccine development. Thus, we were able to develop COVID-19 vaccines so quickly.COVID-19 vaccine is one of the best solutions for us at the moment to reduce the spread of the infection but its primary function is to save as many lives as possible by cutting down the risks of people falling extremely sick from COVID-19 when infected, ” he added.

Sarawak, he said is doing extremely well in the vaccination program for 2.04 million eligible adults with around 1.66 million adults completing their 1st dose and around 1.14 million adults completing their 2nd dose. The government is currently reviewing on getting children to be vaccinated as well to ensure that they are also protected.

To him, saving lives and saving the livelihood of the people should come first. Now is not the time for politicking to score political mileage. It does not matter which political divide you are from, the important thing is for us to come together in solidarity against the COVID-19 virus.

“We do not want to be like Selangor sprawling out of control everyday recording more than half of the country’s daily cases. We are fortunate that with effective leadership in Sarawak government, we are able to reduce our daily cases. The result speaks for itself. Even if we are vaccinated, we must continue to be vigilance and follow the strict SOPs from SDMC. Remember to continue wearing appropriate face mask in public, avoid crowds, wash your hands regularly, avoid close contact and avoid confined spaces, ” he added.

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