It is very much a “whole of nation approach” rather than a “whole of government” one, the prime minister said in a special interview with the media here today.

He said all parties, including the government, the people, non-governmental organisations and other parties, must work together and provide support for the success of PPN, which is a transition strategy out of the health crisis that has hit the country since March last year.

He said the country should not be seen as having failed to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic as the government had just embarked on the PPN and achievements would take time and cannot yield results over just a week or a month.

“It takes a bit of a long painful recovery but I believe and have confidence that we will survive the test. Give the government a chance at this.”

On June 15 Muhyiddin announced the PPN, which has four phases that will transition in stages.

It is guided by three main threshold value indicators to move from one phase to the next: the number of daily infections, healthcare capacity based on ICU bed usage rate and how much of the population is fully vaccinated.

Muhyiddin said Malaysia was one of the first countries to submit a comprehensive recovery plan and for that, the government needed to be proactive in providing an orderly framework and policy to ensure the country is on the right track.

According to the prime minister, the country is now facing a dynamic situation with the emergence of new variants which requires the government to manage it quickly, systematically and transparently.

This includes increasing the vaccination rate, especially in the Klang Valley area, as half of the daily Covid-19 cases are from Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, he said.

Muhyiddin said so far eight states had entered Phase Two of PPN, and he expects Sarawak to be among the earliest states to move to Phase Three due to its high vaccination rate and good health control.