PUTRAJAYA: Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has reiterated yet again that the nation has not won its war against Covid-19 and called for Malaysians to continue their fight against the dreaded infection.
He reassured that all the practices and measures put in place by the government – implementing border control, movement control order (MCO), prohibition of large gatherings and social distancing - worked in helping to curb Covid-19.
“I believe that there are a lot of people who had been affected by phase one and two of the MCO but what’s important right now is that we continue the battle against Covid-19, which we have yet to win.
“What’s important is how we’ve behaved all these while,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said the health ministry is also of the view that the third phase should be stricter and urged the government to put on hold its decision to allow more economic sectors to operate.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in his address on Friday announced that more sectors would be allowed to operate during the third phase of the MCO, which would last until April 28.
“We should also see what would be our form of action after the third phase and the planning should be done right now and its implementation only after the third phase ends.
“Most importantly, we need to keep a close eye on the data we collect daily to see if we have successfully fought the Covid-19 transmission in the country,” he said in his daily press conference on Covid-19 developments, here, today.
Commenting on the requests made by certain quarters to send stranded university students back home, Dr Noor Hisham asked for students to persevere a bit longer, at least until the ministry acquires more data into the third phase before he advises further on the matter.
“Considering that we are entering an important phase, we need to tighten our act to lower the infection rate as predicted by the ministry, which will only be successful if we stand together,” said Dr Noor Hisham.
He said the probability for the virus to continue its transmission was still very high.
The nation’s top health official pleaded to Malaysians to continue practicing safe distancing, not hold gatherings and grasp the fact that things cannot go back to the previous norm, even after the third phase of the MCO ends.