After coming under fire for his criticism against Noor Hisham two years ago, Bintulu MP Tiong King Sing fired a fresh tirade today by questioning if Noor Hisham, as a key decision-maker in the country’s pandemic response, was “indeed the best person to lead the fight against Omicron”.

“The fact remains that he is a surgeon, whose background is not that of a public health specialist.

“They (the health ministry) are obviously underqualified but still refuse to seek advice from China, which has massive experience in fighting this pandemic,” Tiong, who is the prime minister’s special envoy to China, said in a lengthy Facebook post.

He said people had noticed that the death rate from the pandemic in China was low and questioned why Malaysia had not adopted more strategies from that country.

“And why hasn’t Noor Hisham been replaced yet? How many more lives must be lost to Covid-19 before we realise he must not be allowed to continue to serve in this capacity?”

Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin was also not spared his tirade.

Tiong questioned if Khairy had a clear strategy in the nation’s fight against the Omicron variant.

“In this situation, we need to ask whether, as the minister in charge, he has a clear strategy to meet the worst-case scenario or is he still adopting a ‘one step at a time’ attitude right now?”

Tiong asked whether the ministry was “simply” dismissing the data to avoid making the public nervous, without putting into place any practical counter-measures.

Two years ago, in the Dewan Rakyat, Tiong questioned why Noor Hisham was not visiting hospitals to provide moral support to medical teams.

He claimed the director-general was afraid of dying and accused him of seeking publicity with his daily health briefings.

After receiving a barrage of criticism, the Bintulu MP apologised for his remarks against Noor Hisham.