By Athirah Mohammad
GOMBAK, 11 April 2020: The ongoing nationwide Movement Control Order (MCO) will be extended by another two weeks until April 28, in efforts to stem the continued rise of Covid-19 cases.
In a special televised broadcast on Friday (10 April), Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that the MCO had helped healthcare workers contain the spread of the infection. According to the projections made by the Ministry of Health Malaysia, the MCO enforced since March 18 has more or less checked the spread of Covid-19.
He even added that the country’s death rates were low in which 1.6% compared to 5.8% of the global toll, and that the number of new cases had also dropped.
However, this outbreak is still in the middle stages and it requires ongoing precaution. If the trend continues to drop, we can curb it from spreading but we cannot take it easily as more efforts are needed in order to break the infection transmission chain.
“On the advice of the Health Ministry and health experts, the government has decided to extend the MCO for another two weeks, from April 15 until April 28,” the Prime Minister announced.
“The extension is to allow health workers to curb the pandemic.”
Accordingly, the extension of the MCO by two more weeks is in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s view that the MCO is not to be lifted too soon if the spread of the virus has not been fully overcome.
The Prime Minister also said that everyone must be prepared to face this situation in a relatively longer period of time. “It may last for several months before we can fully determine the curb on outbreak is over 100 percent.” ***