On today’s episode of absurd news, we are here to report to you about how a Taiwanese politician commented on Malaysia’s lockdown and approach to combat COVID-19.
A Taiwanese news and talk show “Crucial Moment” broadcasted under Eastern Broadcasting Company (EBC), was recently reported to have spread false and twisted news about Malaysia’s COVID-19 situation. This particular incident was aired in an episode that was broadcasted on 24 March, and the complete episode that was uploaded by EBC on YouTube has since been set on private.
Let us tell you what happened.
Lee Cheng-hao, the politician who appeared on the show for that particular episode, commented that Malaysian police began arresting criminals on a large scale since the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO). He also mentioned that the police forced the criminals to wear face masks in fear of being infected with COVID-19.
Other than saying that police are “going too far” in arresting people, he had something to say about Malaysia’s crisis response as well, according to Oriental Daily.
Lee said that due to the shortages of medical supplies (ie. Personal Protective Equipment aka PPE), Malaysia’s frontline medical personnel had to wear garbage bags to protect themselves. Besides, he used the word “collapse” to describe our current healthcare system.
“Because Malaysia’s healthcare system collapsed and there’s no protective supply left, they (medical personnel) could only resort to plastic bags or garbage bags to utilise as the cheapest protective gear. They just merely cut a hole in the bag and fit it over a doctor’s head. This happened in Malaysian hospitals and these people are the frontliners. Is this method even effective? Because they (doctors) have nothing else to use but garbage bags.”
We did an article about Malaysian medical frontliners seen using bin liners as a substitute for PPE and there is indeed a shortage of PPE in Malaysia. However, according to Malay Mail, larger hospitals like Sungai Buloh Hospital may have sufficient supply of PPE, and the shortages occur in other hospitals.
Okay, that was not all. Here comes the biggest news twist.
Lee mentioned that there are too many people who died of COVID-19 in Malaysia and they could not be cremated in time, therefore, authorities “simply” buried the bodies at the roadside in the middle of the night.
“There are too many corpses, and they probably do not have the time to cremate all of them, or they may want to follow the traditional Islamic burial. What I think is that Malaysia can’t even hold a proper (normal) funeral, this is no wonder why that country had to go into lockdown. It’s because the situation in their country is too severe.”
Wow. We’re wondering where he heard this from.
Malaysian netizens would, of course, not let Lee slide and many swarmed his Facebook page, demanding for an apology.
Multiple netizens left the same comments: “Apologise to Malaysians!”, while one of them tried to explain why the show should respond to this issue.
“These are all the false information that was broadcasted on your show: Malaysian doctors wearing plastic bags as protection, our police forcing criminals to wear face masks, as well as authorities burying the corpses at the roadside. These pieces of information had a negative impact on Malaysia. I hope your show will be able to respond. Thank you!”
In regards to the rule where police had to force criminals to wear face masks, netizens explained that it was just a police rehearsal.
Here is the clip shared on Sin Chew Daily:
Yikes! We have heard how this particular news show had a history of exaggerating and twisting information, but we wonder if this was really necessary during such a difficult time when various countries are attempting to stop the spread of the virus.
Also read: WHO Chooses Malaysia as One of First Few Countries to Test Possible Covid-19 Cure
