KUALA LUMPUR – The Lembah Pantai enhanced movement control order (EMCO) was lifted on July 14 after a 14-day lockdown. However, with infection numbers still high, even residents there are asking if the decision to reopen Lembah Pantai was done hastily.
Muneswaran Subramaniam, 32, a resident of the Seri Pantai People’s Housing Project (PPR) in Pantai Dalam believes the EMCO should have been extended.
“Look, this week alone we managed to break the record of 13,000 cases,” said Muneswaran, who lives with his 56-year-old father, 52-year-old mother, and three other brothers in a 600 sq ft unit that only has two rooms and a bathroom.
There are 24 units in a single floor of the 21-storey building. That someone like Muneswaran is willing to be cooped up for another two weeks represents the sacrifices the people here are willing to make to reduce case numbers.
A month ago, Muneswaran and his family were quarantined at home for 14 days as his younger brother tested positive for Covid-19.
“My brother was Covid-19-positive several weeks back and is now fully recovered. The rest of us (in the house) too were having fever, flu, and headache. Luckily, it was just a viral fever as the swab tests were negative.”
He added that only a handful of people were being swabbed at Lembah Pantai despite recording the most cases in the Kuala Lumpur area since this pandemic struck.
Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil had questioned the need for the easing of the EMCO when numbers were still high.
“There are 5,000 people living in Seri Pantai, but only 1,000 are being tested,” he had said.
Muneswaran said: “The barbed wire should still be up, and the government should do PCR tests for everyone, because the majority of the people living here are middle-class or below,” reiterating that some of the residents could not afford the tests in private clinics or hospitals.
However, he added, even if they do decide to go to the government clinic on their own, it is impossible as the majority of the residents are senior citizens, making travelling difficult due to restrictions.
Meanwhile, Pantai Ria PPR residents’ association chairman Mohd Radi Razali expressed his discontent, saying that the two-week EMCO in Pantai Dalam was a mess.
“After it was announced that we were under the EMCO, the first three days had endless problems. It was difficult to get the residents to abide by the standard operating procedures as many had started feeling agitated.”
It was the first EMCO faced by the residents of Pantai Ria PPR in Pantai Dalam, which comprises four blocks of 112 units, with 5,779 residents.
According to him, the situation became more complex when Health Ministry officers failed to segregate positive and negative residents, instead allowing them back into their units after swab tests were done.
To compound the confusion, two sets of officers patrolled the area by shifts – from both Bukit Aman police headquarters and the Brickfields district.
“While Pantai Dalam is under the jurisdiction of the Brickfields OCPD, at times officers from Bukit Aman are also involved. So, every night, different shifts are given to different officers, resulting in inconsistent SOP enforcement,” said Radi.
He added that while the Social Welfare Department has been somewhat helpful, there is still room for improvement.
He suggested a “special disaster relief aid” to minimise the plight of the people there, as some have difficulty putting food on the table.
The bureaucracy also added to the misery, with donations from outsiders and NGOs only allowed to be delivered through the government’s Wilayah Foundation.
“We have faced numerous EMCOs all around Malaysia and we have passed MCO 1.0, MCO 2.0, and now MCO 3.0.
“They (the government) should be well equipped by now. After all, this pandemic has been dragging on for close to two years,” he said. – The Vibes, July 24, 2021
Additional reporting by Tara Sekhar
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