With or without MCO, border control should be tightened - Dr Noor Hisham

Border control measures should continue to be tightened even after the Movement Control Order (MCO) is lifted, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

This is crucial as more than 180 countries had recorded positive COVID-19 cases as of today, he said.

"I think that's the most important… especially when you look into more cases that have been identified in other countries.

"Lifting MCO doesn't mean we are going to lift the border control; in fact, we need to strengthen it," he said in his daily press conference on COVID-19 here.

Apart from border control, movement control, capability of the country’s healthcare system, ability to protect high-risk groups, practising the new normal, and implementing preventive measures in the community have been identified as the criteria that should be met before the government can lift the MCO.

Dr Noor Hisham said the issue of local transmission should also be addressed comprehensively before any advice to lift or ease the MCO could be made after phase three ends on Tuesday.

"For the last couple of days we are looking into double digits (new positive cases); that is good. But I'd like to draw attention to today (where) we have 71 cases, with 19 being imported cases, which means 52 are from local transmission.

"Out of that, 22 involved foreign workers from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan from Selangor Mansion. So again, we need to really look into local transmission as well when we are looking into lifting the MCO," he said.

On whether the MCO is safe to be lifted or eased after phase three, Dr Noor Hisham said he met Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today and would meet him again in a couple of days to discuss the matter further.

"Today, we discussed the principles. Now we need the facts and science behind it before we can table concrete evidence on whether we should extend it or not," he said.

However, Dr Noor Hisham stressed that the MCO should not be lifted totally, saying it should be done 'slowly but surely' by way of 'soft landing'.

"Maybe we are looking into whether we can allow the economic sector to take off first, whereby the social and education sectors have to wait a little bit longer… it may take a couple of weeks or even months for us to slowly continue to embrace the new norms in our life," he said.

Meanwhile, when commenting on the Sarawak government’s decision to allow food traders to sell at their residence, he said all states needed to abide by the guidelines issued by the Health Ministry.

He said it was important to follow the guidelines so as to avoid any form of gatherings.

-- BERNAMA