KUALA LUMPUR (June 1): The Ministry of Health (MoH) has congratulated Malaysians for adhering to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), which has led to the containment of Covid-19 cases in the country.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah Dr Noor Hisham said the number of locally-transmitted Covid-19 cases among Malaysians is in line with projection in the modeling done by the ministry’s National Institute of Health (NIH).
Besides locally-transmitted cases, there are imported cases among Malaysians, as well as cases involving foreigners in the country including in immigration detention depots.
Dr Noor Hisham said the local transmission rate reflects the positive impact of the actions taken by the government and Malaysians' compliance with the SOP and the recommendations made by the government.
"The MoH would like to congratulate Malaysians for their cooperation with the government for this achievement, in our efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19 infections together.
"However, communities should remain vigilant and adhere to the SOP, as well as the recommendations to ensure that there is no increase in Covid-19 cases in the local community," he said at the daily Covid-19 press briefing.
In order to assess the effectiveness of the CMCO, where certain economic sectors have been allowed to reopen, the NIH has utilised a modelling approach to project the number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia.
With this projection, MoH has taken the latest data from the actual daily number of cases and compared them to the Covid-19 modelling graph as projected by the NIH.
Acknowledging the recent spike of Covid-19 cases among foreign workers in the country, Dr Noor Hisham stressed that the focus now is to intensify awareness activities among foreign workers to comply with the SOPs, especially social distancing, as well as maintaining good hygiene in their daily lives.
"So now we have to look at maintaining compliance with the SOP, among both Malaysians and the foreign workers in our country. They (foreign workers) must also comply with the SOP, only then we can truly break the Covid-19 infection chain in our country," he said.
On another matter, Dr Noor Hisham noted there has not been a spike in Covid-19 cases after more than a week since Aidilfitri.
The ministry had been concerned that Malaysians may not follow the SOPs during the festive period.
"We will continue to monitor the situation within this week. And if the number of daily cases remains under control, maybe we will advise the NSC (National Security Council) and the prime minister to provide more flexibility in other sectors, such as social, sports and education sectors.
"So we will discuss this together and take appropriate actions," he added.
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