UPDATE: Kelantan and Perak have joined seven other states in not following the conditional MCO.

 

PETALING JAYA: A maximum of four people are allowed to travel together in a private vehicle from Monday under the conditional movement control order (MCO) but they must be from the same family household.

Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said action would be taken against a person who travels with a passenger or passengers who did not live within the same household

Ismail said the Government arrived at this decision as there is typically no social distancing within a household, "so that is why the government has decided to allow this."

Ismail said that as of May 2, 414 individuals had been arrested for violating the MCO, taking the cumulative number of arrests to 23,680.

The police and army conducted checks on 552,999 vehicles at 823 roadblocks around the country on Saturday, he added.

On public transport, Ismail said all such services would on Monday revert to normal operating hours prior to the MCO period.

"This is to ease the commute of those going to their offices. But commuters and operators of public transport are reminded to follow the guidelines set by the government, including to ensure there is social distancing and that personal hygiene is observed."

The Government has decreed that all public transport vehicles including buses and trains carry passengers at half-load to ensure sufficient distancing between individuals.



In a related development, seven states have decided not to follow the federal move to relax the MCO to allow most businesses to reopen. They are Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Penang, Pahang, Kedah, Sabah and Sarawak.

Some states such as Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Kedah are limiting the number and type of businesses that could resume operations. Generally, they have continued to bar any dine-in at restaurants despite the imposition of new rules to minimise infections.

Penang is adopting a three-phase approach to the conditional MCO in an attempt to make a soft-landing out of the restrictions.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said it is preparing guidelines from May 4 to May 8, May 9-12 and from May 13 onwards.

The seven states believed that it is still too early to lift restrictions as the threat from Covid-19 remains significant.

The concerns was reinforced by Universiti Malaya research consultant Professor Datuk Dr Lam Sai Kit who said today the easing up of rules at the federal level was too soon.

He said the number of cases has not gone down sufficiently for the country to consider being "out of the woods."

He urged the government to listen to the concerns expressed by the various sectors of the population and review the conditional MCO decision.

"There are still too many local transmissions: 95 local transmissions out of 105 new cases on Saturday (May 2)," he said.

“No one is objecting to the loosening of MCO, but the relaxation is far too much and too soon," he said in a press statement.

The MCO is scheduled to end on May 12. It has been in force since March 18.

Dr Lam was central in the discovery of the Nipah virus in the late 1990s, and was instrumental in developing in-house rapid diagnostic techniques to detect dengue virus.

On the infection rate, the Health Ministry recorded a total of 122 new Covid-19 cases today, making it the second consecutive day that infections have been in triple digits. This brings the total number of infections to 6,298, with 1,780 active cases.

Two new deaths were recorded, bringing the death toll to 105. A total of 87 patients have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 4,413 or 70% of all cases.

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