This January 19, 2022 pic shows the suspects arrested by police in connection with the sales of fake vaccination certificates in Johor Baru. This was revealed by Johor police chief Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat during a press conference at the Johor police contingent headquarters. - NSTP/NUR AISYAH MAZALAN
This January 19, 2022 pic shows the suspects arrested by police in connection with the sales of fake vaccination certificates in Johor Baru. This was revealed by Johor police chief Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat during a press conference at the Johor police contingent headquarters. - NSTP/NUR AISYAH MAZALAN

News that Hong Kong plans to cull some 2,000 hamsters and other small pets on account of only a handful in a pet shop being found to be Covid-19-positive has horrified animal lovers the world over.

But the culling of these helpless, innocent creatures, whether or not they are all positive, ties in very well with China's zero-Covid policy. If a two-digit human infection number can spur China to shut down an entire city so rapidly that residents have no time to stock up on food — even to the extent of the starvation of some — it's not surprising, though still desperately heartbreaking, that they would have no qualms in putting down domestic pets.

Give thanks then that Malaysia would hopefully never be so heartless. One wonders though what China's zero-tolerance policy would make of the (so far) handful of "enterprising" doctors we have here selling fake vaccination certificates?

The cases are still being investigated, with suspects released on police bail and charges still pending. Even so, the cases involve five states, involving easily 10,000 patients, at the very least. And this is only the beginning. Who knows how many clinics have been peddling illegally-procured certificates, how widespread this problem may be, or what percentage of our supposedly vaccinated population is actually vaccinated?

ProtectHealth may say that it has taken all the precautions to ensure that the private clinics that it chooses are fully certified and that the clinic staff are trained on vaccination standard operating procedures; but, obviously in these cases, the problem is not that there are fake clinics with fake doctors giving out fake vaccinations, but rather, it is that certified doctors in licensed clinics are being dishonest and cheating the system.

One clinic was so brazen as to send WhatsApp messages to random numbers, fishing for customers. And why not? The reward for taking such a risk runs in the millions of ringgit. But, what is the cost of this deception to the country? To the nation, the cost is untold losses in life and healthcare, as well as potentially a deficit of confidence in our Covid-19 measures, which will have repercussions from the local and international perspectives. To the medical profession, if the cases are numerous enough, it will lead to a serious trust deficit in the integrity of doctors.

After all, if you can "rely" on a private clinic to give you a medical certificate when you're not ill, and a vaccination certificate when you haven't been vaccinated, can you even trust that the medicines and medical treatment that you're getting are real, if there is more profit for the doctor to make by not giving the real thing?

The only way to beat crime is to ensure that the costs outweigh the benefits. If the Malaysian courts can sentence a Myanmar woman to six months' jail for using her colleague's passport to get vaccinated, the penalty for those who use deception to not get vaccinated should be greater. And the penalty on the doctors and other enablers should be the greatest.

Malaysia must take a zero-tolerance stance on this matter. Crime will always happen; what will differentiate a safe country from an unsafe one is how well we handle crime and criminals.

Malaysia should be safe from crime. Don't let it be that Malaysia is safe for criminals.