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KUALA LUMPUR – The government has agreed to further tighten restrictions under the current movement control order (MCO) following a spike in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced.
The prime minister said stricter measures will be imposed on economic and social sectors, but stopped short of saying if a lockdown similar to the first MCO last year will be in force.
He said the decision was agreed unanimously in a National Security Council (NSC) meeting earlier today to deliberate the matter.
“Further details of these additional restrictions will be announced by Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob in a press conference tomorrow,” he said in a statement today.
Muhyiddin’s announcement comes following the highly-anticipated NSC meeting, which was to decide on whether the government would introduce tighter standard operating procedures (SOPs) to combat the pandemic.
This is after the country logged record-high Covid-19 infections this week, breaching 6,000 cases for the first time since the pandemic started early last year.
As of this afternoon, a total of 498,795 people have been infected with the virus in Malaysia, including 2,149 who have died.
There are currently 643 Covid-19 patients in intensive care units, with 363 intubated.
It has also been reported that hospitals nationwide are nearing full capacity in their fight against the coronavirus.
Among others, the prime minister said that the meeting heard the Health Ministry’s update on the current status of the pandemic in the country, including its infectivity rate, states’ health system capacities and several proposals to curb further outbreak.
“The SOPs for MCO 3.0 have been tightened (previously), including barring interstate and inter-district travels, as well as restrictions on social, sports and recreational activities, and also physical conferences and meetings.
“However, the spread of the virus in the community has increased, and the existence of a new, more aggressive virus variant with higher infectivity have made our efforts to flatten the infection curve take a longer period.
“Taking into account the discussion and deliberation in today’s NSC meeting, we have agreed to tighten the implementation of MCO 3.0,” he said.
All eyes will now be on Ismail Sabri’s press conference tomorrow, particularly among business industry players, who have been consistently urging the government not to implement a full lockdown.
Many claimed that such drastic measures could see more businesses going under, and that this could be at the cost of jobs for Malaysians. – The Vibes, May 21, 2021
