PUTRAJAYA: With the compliance rate to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) enforced under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) at 90 per cent among Malaysians, the government is now looking at reopening the education and sports sectors.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Malaysia had seen positive effects of the CMCO, evidently through the lower number of Covid-19 cases, as it entered the recovery phase.
"Even one week after Raya, we did not see an exponential surge in Covid-19 cases among the locals, with only 10 Malaysian cases recorded today. That is an encouraging and a positive sign. We hope next week we can see a much lower double digit or even single digit.
"We will look into the possibility of reopening the social, sports and education sectors especially for Form 5 (students) as they should get the priority.
"Surely, slowly and cautiously, we hope that the good trend will continue," he told a Press conference today.
He said through community empowerment, the responsibility to stay safe and healthy was equally shared between the government and the public where they are tasked to protect themselves, their families, communities and the country.
Apart from the SOPs set by the government, he said community empowerment could help in ensuring public compliance.
Dr Noor Hisham attributed the success to a few factors including daily Covid-19 monitoring, surveillance and information dissemination; hospital preparedness including facilities; border control including 14-day mandatory quarantine for Malaysians returning from abroad; and the protection of the vulnerable including the elderly.
Dr Noor Hisham however stressed that this was in no way suggested that there was an exit strategy planned yet.
"We are not in exit strategy (phase). We have not planned for it yet. Rather, we are strengthening border control and now addressing the local transmissions. Then only perhaps we can control the overall cases.
"We need to adapt to a new environment so that we can survive with the virus until a vaccine is found."
He also reminded business operators and the public to continue complying with the SOP as violators could be fined a maximum RM1,000 under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act.
Meanwhile, he said the spike in cases in the past few days involved foreign workers and the government was looking into ensuring SOP compliance from the group, including practicing good personal hygiene and taking precautionary measures.
"Most of them live in confined spaces, which contribute to the spread of the virus. We are working with other ministries to indentify ways to improve their living condition."
The authorities, he said, were also looking at improving processes at the Immigration detention depots to prevent outbreaks following the detection of several clusters at the depot recently.