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Military slow Myanmar’s response to COVID-19
The health care system under the military regime is failing hard and it has no ability or competence to tackle the health crisis unfolding across the country.
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A street is blocked off as part of Covid-19 coronavirus measures in the city of Ruili which borders Myanmar, in China's southwestern Yunnan province on July 5, 2021. (AFP/Str)
E
arly in the COVID-19 crisis, the Myanmar civilian government rapidly implemented necessary measures to contain the virus. The country had been spared the worst by a “whole-of-nation” approach to combating the outbreak with the support and cooperation from the people.
I vividly remember the forward-looking faces of people at the occasion of vaccine injection. Vaccination and economic recovery plans had encouraged the people to fight against the health crisis. The people stayed hopeful.
Nevertheless, all these hopes and collective efforts were in vain three days later.
In the aftermath of the military coup on Feb. 1, Myanmar is now experiencing its largest number of deaths since the outbreak and the infection in the country is at the peak. To add insult to injury, the highest daily average reported now at 4,047 new infections reported each day.
The health care system under the military regime is failing hard and it has no ability or competence to tackle the health crisis unfolding across the country.
The military has violated people’s trust repeatedly by staging an illegal coup, committing inhumane acts, killing its own people – the same people they have sworn to protect. Now the people don’t believe them, whatever they publish or announce – and the military continues living in its twisted reality.
Many doctors and healthcare workers have refused to work for the military and have been detained and arbitrarily arrested. People in Myanmar cannot work without fear and patients cannot get care without fear.
There have been many reports that the soldiers have raided dozens of medical facilities. Since the coup, there were at least 240 attacks on health care facilities, medical personnel, ambulances, and patients. All these crimes committed by the military have seriously disabled COVID-19 testing, treatment, and vaccination.
As the Myanmar military regime is doing nothing helpful for the containment of the virus, the people have to take care of themselves and one another. Not only lacking in screening of the outbreak and testing capacity, but also there is inadequate medical oxygen.
It is heartbreaking to see that people have to line up to buy oxygen for their beloved infected family members. Nevertheless, the military has controlled and limited the supply of oxygen to the public and ordered oxygen plants not to sell or provide oxygen to the people. This is the distressing reality that people of Myanmar are facing at this moment and many COVID-19 contracted patients have died due to the lack of oxygen supplies.
People of Myanmar are frustrated, afraid and helpless. While the rest of the world is adapting to the “new normal” where most people have been vaccinated, my fellow citizens in Myanmar are desperately looking for oxygen tanks. The military regime has no concrete strategic plan to address the crisis and continues lying at the risk of the people’s lives.
Myanmar is in a precarious situation. This is the moment the people need urgent help from the international community before it is too late. The country is nearly in a state of collapse and the whole situation continues deteriorating for the people of Myanmar.
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The writer is former second secretary at Myanmar Embassy in Washington DC, who, following the military coup in Myanmar, joined the Civil Disobedience Movement and has refused to represent the military regime.
