By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, May 16: If the local Covid-19 situation does not improve, MDDMC might propose to SDMC to impose MCO restrictions similar to the first MCO introduced on March 18 last year.
“In fact, our present conditional movement control order (CMCO) is already as strict as Semenanjung’s present MCO (Movement Control Order),” revealed minister-in-charge of Miri Division Disaster Management Committee (MDDMC) Datuk Lee Kim Shin today when contacted.
He noted SDMC has just imposed tightened standard operating procedures (SOPs) for Miri five days ago and that MDDMC is monitoring the situation very closely and making daily reports to the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).
What is imperative now is to ensure strict compliance of the SOPs by everyone, Lee added.
Human beings carry the virus with infection occurring in three main settings: workplace, social events and institutions such as homes, schools and places of worship.
“Many large Miri clusters originated from social events and institution settings where groups of people gathered and removed their masks for some reason. Some, despite being symptomatic, still attended the gatherings,” he said.
Other clusters centred on small families (institution setting on a smaller scale).
With the stricter CMCO recently imposed, hopefully the chance for group gathering and institutional spread will be curbed, Lee said.
“We are seeking health and medical experts’ advice,” he added.
“Implementing MCO (for example, closing down all non-essential services) may hurt businesses unnecessarily at this point when we have no evidence that large spread is coming from workplaces,” he reckoned.
“If there is strict SOP compliance, we could perhaps see a reduction in the number of positive cases.” — DayakDaily
