KUALA LUMPUR: Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says the onus is on the people to mitigate Covid-19 transmission in the country.
He said local transmission cases were expected to be reduced if the public followed the standard operating procedure (SOP) by the government on the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Looking at our models, which has shown that if we adhered to the SOP, we will manage to bring down the cases further, and today we have 15 cases; six cases were imported cases.
"And today, we managed to bring down for the first time to record single-digit cases or nine cases involving local transmission," he said during the daily press briefing in Putrajaya today.
Dr Noor Hisham, however, stressed on the sustainability of the reduction of cases which would mean stricter adherence to the SOPs.
"We have changed the strategy from the Movement Control Order (MCO) to Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) and it shows that the latter worked with the easing of the restricted movement, and we are able to achieve cases in the single digit.
"But, we need to comply with the SOP. So social compliance, social responsibilities and social discipline are very important.
"The onus is not only on the shoulders of the Health Ministry and government but also on the public.
"So we want to empower the public as one of the exit criteria by World Health Organisation (WHO) No. 6, is on community empowerment.
"If the community can continue to comply to the SOP given, then rest assured we can bring down the cases," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham added that all types of cases were being monitored to find out if the government's mitigation strategy for the last two weeks were effective or otherwise.
"Our concern now certainly because of the festive season and we will know the outcome within the next two weeks." he said.