MOH wanted to implement full MCO in S'gor but economic impact too high
The Health Ministry wanted to put Selangor back under the movement control order (MCO) last month.
However, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the government could not afford the economic ramifications, and thus opted for the less restrictive conditional MCO (CMCO)
"In Selangor, it was very challenging. Even though we took early action and implemented the CMCO on Oct 14.
"If possible we wanted to implement the MCO then, but the cost was too high because 40 percent of the country's economy is in Selangor, so we implemented the CMCO," he said...
The Health Ministry wanted to put Selangor back under a full movement control order (MCO) last month.
However, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the government could not afford the economic ramifications and thus opted for the less restrictive conditional MCO (CMCO)
"In Selangor, it was very challenging. Even though we took early action and implemented the conditional MCO on Oct 14.
"If possible, we wanted to implement the (full) MCO then but the cost was too high because 40 percent of the country's economy is in Selangor, so we implemented the conditional MCO," he said.
Noor Hisham was speaking during a special media briefing on the country's efforts to combat Covid-19 in Putrajaya today.
Selangor recorded 402 cases of Covid-19 today, more than Sabah which registered 346 new cases.
Noor Hisham said for Sabah, the government could take action by screening everyone who returned from the state and imposing a home quarantine on those who tested negative.
"But in Selangor, are we able to screen everyone who goes in and out of the state and quarantine them (for) 14 days if they are negative?
"We are not able to implement that," he said.
Thus, he said, the people must play a bigger role in maintaining social distancing.
He said if everyone is able to comply with the standard operating procedures (SOP), then there would be no need to implement any lockdown measures for enforcement purposes.
“Maybe 90 percent can comply, but 10 percent is enough to create havoc in terms of the spread of the infection,” he said.
The conditional MCO was re-implemented in the Klang Valley covering Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya on Oct 14, following a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases.
It was later extended several times and is now expected to end on Dec 6. The blanket conditional MCO in Klang Valley had seen initial resistance from the Selangor government.
It was later reported that the Selangor Task Force for Covid-19 (STFC) had proposed an enhanced MCO for Petaling Jaya Utara instead of a state-wide conditional MCO.
An enhanced MCO is a strict lockdown where household members must stay in their homes, all business premises are closed for a stipulated period for the purpose of contact tracing.
The conditional MCO was later also imposed on most states in the country, except for Perlis, Pahang, Kelantan and Sarawak.
