EMCO at Centennial Hostel in Sitiawan, Perak tomorrow - Ismail Sabri

Senior Minister (Security Cluster), Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the implementation of EMCO followed confirmation by the Health Ministry (MOH) that there was a spike in cases with high infection rate there.

"MOH today reported the COVID-19 situation in the locality in which MOH conducted 349 screenings and from the total, 125 people were found positive for COVID-19 as Feb 21.

"Therefore after a risk evaluation by various agencies in the MCO Technical Committee and on the advice of MOH, the government agreed to impose EMCO in the locality,” he said in a statement on the development of MCO today.

He said the implementation of EMCO is to facilitate MOH carry out targeted screening on the hostel occupants as well as to control movement and spread of the infection in the community.

In this regard, Ismail Sabri said 253 individuals were arrested for violating MCO in which 231 were issued compounds while the remaining flouters were remanded.

He said the offences recorded were failure to provide facilities to record customer details (75 cases), not wearing face mask (61), gambling (52), illegal interstate and inter-district travel (37), not observing physical distancing (21), premises operating beyond permitted hours (6) and one individual not having personal identification document.

On Op Benteng, he said six illegal immigrants were nabbed and seven vehicles were seized.

“During the operation, the authorities also tracked 87 boats or ships in the country's waters through five sighting activities, and at the same time, a total of six foreigners were also chased away, " he said.

He said 502 roadblocks were conducted yesterday involving police, Malaysian Border Security Agency (AKSEM), Armed Forces and the Malaysian Volunteer Corps (RELA).

Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri said yesterday saw 625 individuals arriving via international check points and all of them were quarantined at stations throughout the country bringing the cumulative number individuals who returned since July 24 2020 to 130,115 people.

"From the total, 7,901 individuals were quarantined and 121,525 were allowed to return home while 689 more were sent to hospitals,” he said.