KUALA LUMPUR – Warning that three highly infective foreign variants of Covid-19 are now spreading in the community, Senior Minister (Defence) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob today announced that there will be only be one set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the movement control order (MCO).
Speaking at a joint press conference with Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Ismail Sabri said the government’s decision to create only one set of general SOPs stems from the fact that the various SOPs for the different forms of MCOs have confused the public.
“People were confused because each MCO, such as the conditional MCO (CMCO) and recovery MCO (RMCO), has its own set of SOPs. Now, we have made the decision to only have one set of SOPs nationwide, involving all the ministries.
“We’ve agreed on some of the SOPs, including activities allowed under the MCO as well as activities not allowed under the negative list. We will have a complete list of general SOPs and each ministry will have its own SOPs as well.
“Each ministry will list their SOPs on their website, which the public can visit, and the general SOPs can be found on the National Security Council (NSC) website. I can’t list the SOPs here because there are too many,” said Ismail Sabri.
He said the decision was made by the MCO joint technical committee after studying new data presented to the NSC chaired by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as well as ministers and senior government officials.
Dr Noor Hisham then chipped in, saying that one of the reasons behind MCO 3.0, which has raised the ire of many Malay-Muslims as it is just before the Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebrations this Thursday, is that the South African variant has already entered the community.
“The cases are increasing. This is why we need MCO 3.0. We don’t have enough hospital beds, and if it increases we won’t have enough beds in intensive care units (ICU) to treat cases.
“Up to 80% of the recent infections are not due to clusters but are sporadic – it’s already in the community,” he said.
He added that there have already been 62 South African variant cases, eight UK variant cases, and one Indian variant case found in Malaysia, and all of them have passed away.
“Out of the four variants of concern listed by the World Health Organisation, we have detected three of them in Malaysia. We have not found the Brazilian variant here,” he said.
He described this as being of great concern as the variants have high infection and death rates.
“Our worry is that the variants have spread and we hope MCO 3.0 can control it,” Dr Noor Hisham said.
He said that from the 14 South African variant cases found today, seven were found in a Kelantan cluster, three from close contacts in Selangor, one case from a health worker in Kelantan, two cases in Kedah and one more in Negri Sembilan.
Furthermore, the director-general explained that Malaysia currently has a total of 734 ICU beds nationwide and nearly 500 beds are being utilised at the moment.
The authorities predict that if MCO 3.0 is not implemented by June, ICUs will be inundated with fresh cases that can in total require up to 1,700 beds.
“If we are given two to four weeks, the Health Ministry can prepare our hospitals and ICUs, and obtain more medical equipment such as ventilators. This is why we are doing this: to prepare ourselves and by avoiding contact, reduce the infection rate,” said Dr Noor Hisham.
He also shared an observation from the international medical community that Malaysia was not alone when it experienced a sudden spike in Covid-19 infection rates in March 2021 which led to MCO 2.0.
He said that he believed that this was when the virus began mutating into the various different variants. – The Vibes, May 11, 2021
