Don't be surprised when the police come knocking at your door to check on your house during this Aidilfitri celebration.

The reason being that the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) and the Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) will be conducting patrols in residential areas during the festive season to ensure compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOP) on festive home visits.

This has been announced by Senior Minister (Security Cluster), Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob in a press conference Tuesday, whereby the patrols would be conducted to, among others, as part of efforts by the authorities to curb the spread of COVID-19 and ensure public compliance with the SOP under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO).

The government has also announced that visiting during the coming Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Pesta Kaamatan and Hari Gawai will only be allowed on the first day of each celebration and is limited to immediate family members, with the gathering to not exceed 20 people in one day, depending on the size of the house.

Strict action will be taken by police against the defiers, including imposing compound on those caught ignoring interstate travel ban.

According to Bukit Aman Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department (JSPT) Director, Datuk Azisman Alias, the actions of those who went on interstate travel without reasonable grounds are only interfering with the movement of frontline personnel who are trying to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Their action only disrupted the movement of essential service vehicles to reach their destinations.

Apart from the festive home visits and balik kampung (returning home) for the festive occasion, cemetery visit, which is a normal practice during Hari Raya, is also being looked into it with the SOP for the (cemetery) visit during Aidilfitri to be released if the Health Ministry and the National Security Council feel there is a need for it.

According to Ismail Sabri, for now, the Health Ministry only advised the public not to visit the graves in a move to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the community.

If all the SOPs are complied with and advice taken, there is a high chance of Malaysia being on the right to have the daily new COVID-19 positive cases dropping to less than 10.

As explained by Health director-general, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday, Malaysia is still on track to see new COVID-19 cases reduce to single-digits soon.

“We are still on target based on our modelling, but the more important thing is that when we look back at the two weeks from the fourth of May until now, certainly the cases (COVID-19) have not increased, however, it’s not also decreasing as fast as we want to,” he said.

Implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) has helped to maintain the number of daily new COVID-19 cases at double digits, and more importantly, there is no sudden surge in the number of new positive cases detected.- BERNAMA