Six criteria need to be fulfilled before MCO can be lifted

• UPDATED 8.18PM | Added details of the six criteria needed for the gov't to consider lifting the MCO.

CORONAVIRUS | Six criteria need to be fulfilled before the government can decide to lift the movement control order (MCO), said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

According to him, four of the criteria are border control, movement control, the readiness of the healthcare services system, and protection of high-risk groups.

Two others are the people's cooperation in practising social distancing, hand hygiene and avoidance of any gathering, and implementation of in-community prevention.

"We are still monitoring all the data, and whether the MCO would be lifted or extended, there has yet to be any decision made by the government.

"But what is sure, we have six criteria that we need to have before going towards ending the order," he said.

Noor Hisham was answering a reporter's question on whether the government would follow Indonesia's move, where it bans all balik kampung travel during next month's Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

On the first criteria, he said it is important to have stringent border control to prevent imported cases from spreading in the country.

He said that there is also a risk of imported cases brought by Malaysians who returned from overseas. The government has enforced mandatory 14-day quarantine for all returnees since April 3.

According to Noor Hisham, to date, 95 returnees had tested positive so far. These include 68 who returned from Indonesia. All of them had since been admitted into Covid-19 wards.

"The second criteria is movement control, where we try to prevent infection from one individual to another. If we stay at home, the probability of us getting infected is low. But if we go to a packed location, or to a gathering, for example, there is a higher probability to catch Covid-19.

"The infectivity of the virus is much higher if someone who is positive goes to such places and might spread it to a lot more people," he stressed.

The third criteria look into the healthcare services preparedness, including the capability of Ministry of Health (MOH) laboratories to process Covid-19 detection tests, as well as adequate facilities like hospital beds and intensive care unit wards to cater to positive cases.

According to Noor Hisham, the World Health Organisation's standard puts between 24 and 48 hours for a test to return a result.

MOH, he added, aims at achieving less than 24 hours.

On protecting high-risk groups, Noor Hisham explained that they also have to look at activities to ensure those who belong to such groups are well protected from Covid-19.

These include the elderly, people with disabilities, patients under chemotherapy, and those who have comorbid illnesses.

"The fifth criteria is where we need the people to be with us, where all of us need to practice the new norms, including social distancing, always washing our hands, and avoid any gathering.

"Sixth, we also have to look into how we can identify areas and get the community to be together with MOH to carry out preventive measures in the community," he said.

The government has started enforcing MCO since March 18 with the aim of breaking the chain of Covid-19 infections.

Initially set for two weeks until March 31, the order had since been renewed twice, and now coming to the end of its Phase 3 on April 28.

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