No plan to postpone school reopening - Ismail Sabri

He said that reopening of schools will continue as decided earlier.

“Still with the previous decision. However, if there is a case detected in school or in any sector, we will make a decision then,” he said during a press conference on the development of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) at the Parliament building here today.

The reopening of schools began with Forms Five and Upper Six students on June 24, followed by preschoolers on July 1, with Forms One to Four and Lower Six students, and Years 5 and 6 pupils on July 15, while pupils in Years One to Four are scheduled to return to school tomorrow with the strict standard operating procedures (SOP) set.

However, the opening sparked concern among some parents as children are at risk of being susceptible to the COVID-19 infection.

Meanwhile, when asked to comment on the new cluster detected by the Ministry of Health (MOH) at an old folks home in Kluang, Johor, involving 14 positive cases yesterday, Ismail Sabri said that the centre is currently placed under the Movement Control Order (MCO) for 14 days.

He said that members of the public and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who want to contribute are not allowed to enter the centre.

Yesterday, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the first positive case from this cluster was a fatality which was reported Sunday (July 19) (case No. 8,770).

Meanwhile, to limit the number of visitors at shopping malls, Ismail Sabri said the owners of the premises are encouraged to stop visitors from entering if the place was too crowded and there was no social distancing.

“They are encouraged to create a rotational system to control the crowd, in terms of mass entry into the premises,” he said.