EMCO at Muar Rehabilitation Centre from tomorrow - Ismail Sabri

Senior Minister (Security Cluster), Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the implementation of EMCO at Muar PPA which has been turned into a Prison Transit Centre since last month is aimed at facilitating screening all close contacts of positive cases involving 773 detainees and 127 employees.

"The EMCO SOP (standard operating procedure) at the detention centre is the same as announced earlier, among them no movement in and out of the centre and visits by family members are not allowed,” he said in a statement on the development of Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) today.

He said to date, the Ministry of Health (MOH) had conducted 726 screening tests and 20 positive COVID-19 cases were recorded among the detainees.

He said based on risk evaluation, MOH found high risk and rate of infectivity among detainees.

Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri said the implementation of EMCO at Sierra East Condominium near Persiaran Paya Terubong Flat in Relau Penang ended today.

He said the decision to lift the EMCO at the condominium earlier was based on the advice and risk evaluation of MOH after no positive COVID-19 cases were detected when all occupants had been screened.

"MOH also found the majority of the condominium residents were not linked to the cluster reported,” he said.

The government had enforced EMCO at Persiaran Paya Terubong Flat from Dec 7 and it was extended to Dec 31.

On the enforcement of standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance, he said 230 individuals were detained yesterday for infringing the SOP and they were all issued compounds.

Among the SOP offences were failing to provide equipment to record customer (76) , entertain centre activities (71), not wearing face mask (41), failure to observe physical distancing (37) and others (five), he said.

He said in Op Benteng, 33 illegal immigrants were detained yesterday while five vehicles were seized.

On mandatory quarantine since July 24 to yesterday, 90,536 individuals had returned via international checkpoints and were placed at 77 hotels and 16 other premises including public training institutes and private education institutes nationwide.

“From the total, 7,574 individuals are undergoing mandatory quarantine while 535 individuals were sent to hospitals for treatment and 82,427 individuals were allowed to return home,” he said.