SIBU, Oct 2: Members of the public reacted with mixed response to a tweet by Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on Twitter.
The Health director-general tweeted, “How about all stay at home for a while again?” yesterday in reply to a Twitter user Zee @zalifahms who proposed stopping inter-state travel for a while and not to trust self-quarantine.
This came about as the country saw a surge in new Covid-19 cases after 260 infections were recorded in the country.
Sabah recorded the highest number of new cases with 118, followed closely by Kedah with 98 cases. Kuala Lumpur recorded 14 cases followed by Selangor with 13, Putrajaya (five), Terengganu (two), Perlis (two), Pahang (one), Penang (one) and Melaka (one).
This is the highest increase in cases of the recovery movement control order (MCO) phase since it began on June 9.
A restaurant operator, Pang Chui Hua agreed with Dr Noor Hisham for people to stay at home again.
“I definitely agree with Dr Noor Hisham because this disease is way too infectious and we are too careless to strictly follow the standard operating procedures set by the government,” said Pang.
He opined that locking down saves a lot of manpower and lives.
“One word of advice; we are in a war now and the enemy is invisible to the bare eyes. No guns, no fire powder, no warplanes, no soldiers but this doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. So if you want to win this war, it’s quite simple. Just stay at home,” he asserted.
By staying at home, he said it helps to prevent one from getting the disease.
A primary school headmistress who wished to be anonymous, also agreed for another lockdown but only in red zone areas with high infectious rate of Covid-19.
“I agree for another lockdown but in high risk region only and not for the whole country so that the economy will not be seriously affected. There is no point imposing a lockdown in green zone areas like Kapit as an example,” she added.
An assistant general manager of a housing developer, Eddy Puah concurred with her.
“Generally speaking I’m against another lockdown for the whole nation. Specific area with high number of cases is okay with lockdown but not a blanket lockdown for whole nation,” said Puah.
He was against a blanket lockdown as the country’s economy is ill equipped to take another beating.-DayakDaily
