PETALING JAYA - Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin urged Malaysians on Saturday (Aug 8) to consider themselves as front-liners in the continuing fight against the spread of Covid-19, and said the government is willing to reimpose total lockdowns in districts with sudden spikes in new cases.
Launching the country's Cultivating the New Normal campaign in his constituency of Pagoh in northern Johor, he called on everyone to remain vigilant and guard against creating new Covid-19 clusters by relaxing on health protocols, such as social distancing and the wearing of masks.
"As citizens of the country who are responsible to break the chain of Covid-19 infections, I call on all of you to continue practising the new norms by complying with the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health," he was quoted as saying by Free Malaysia Today news site.
Malaysia went into lockdown on March 18 with the movement control order (MCO), but has since allowed most businesses and social activities to resume under the ongoing recovery MCO that started on June 10.
But the government is worried about the resurgence of the coronavirus, especially with widely reported cases of people who broke their home quarantines and were caught eating in public places.
"It cannot be denied that the trend of increasing cases and addition of new clusters recently was caused by the failure of some Malaysians in complying with SOPs (standard operating procedures).
"I take for example the non-compliance with the home quarantine order among a small group of individuals who were supposed to be quarantined for 14 days after returning from abroad.
"This breaching of the order does not only endanger their family members and friends, but also exposes the community to Covid-19," he said.
He referred to what the government called the Sivagangga cluster, that has spread from Kedah to Perlis and Penang.
"There is no village in Kedah with that name. The cluster is linked to those who had returned from a village in India. Although they had their pink wristband on, they infected others when they visited a nasi kandar eatery (in Kedah)," he said, as quoted by New Straits Times.
Malaysia on Friday (Aug 7) reported 25 new cases of Covid-19, involving 23 Malaysians and two foreigners. The cumulative cases totalled 9,063.
This compares with 15 cases on Thursday (Aug 6) and pushes the tally of active cases to 210, said the Health Ministry's director-general, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The death toll from coronavirus cases remained steady at 125.
Noting that several countries are working on creating a vaccine for the virus, PM Muhyiddin said Malaysia is prepared to assist in producing the vaccine.
