Political instability, he said, disrupted efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Last year, we had no prime minister or a Cabinet for two weeks (after the Sheraton Move).

“Normally, there are only four people who can make public statements on Covid-19 – the prime minister, deputy prime minister, health minister and health director-general.

“At that time, the prime minister was only a caretaker with no deputy or health minister beside him.

“The only person left was the health director-general. It was a very painful experience for the health ministry to handle the Covid-19 situation at that time,” said Rohaizat during a webinar co-organised by Sunway University’s Jeffrey Sachs Center and the Economic Planning Unit of the prime minister’s department.

He also said the political instability that paved the way for the Sabah state election in late September last year and the upcoming Melaka state election were disruptive to the country’s efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The lessons learned from Sabah should be a benchmark for the Sarawak state election as well,” said Rohaizat.

Rohaizat retired from the health ministry after 35 years of service on June 10 last year, but returned to serve the ministry on Aug 10 the same year as deputy director-general (medicine) on a four-month contract until Dec 31.

He is currently a public health professor at the Management and Science University.

Universiti Malaya’s specialist on infectious diseases and dean of medicine Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, who was also a panel member at the webinar, said Malaysians began to lose their trust in the government due to the political instability, mixed messages and alleged double standards.

“Trust is a currency of public health. Unfortunately, after our first successful containment (of Covid-19), we slowly lost the people’s trust and we saw how it impeded the country’s response to the pandemic,” said Adeeba.