KUCHING, March 20: Uncooperative business premises in Bintulu should be fined and put in a lockdown in order to curb the spread of Covid-19, opined Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing.
Tiong in a press statement today said the State Health Department has been faced with uncooperative business operators, especially from the supermarkets, who refused to adhere to their orders in implementing the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs).
“Businesses have no excuse not to strictly monitor themselves and practice the self-discipline to implement these crucial SOPs. Being trivial and complacent in this matter is sorely irresponsible on their part.
“Therefore, it is imperative to set a limit on the number of customers allowed into a store at any given time according to the SOPs and violators of these limits must be fined and a lockdown ordered. We must do this in order to curb the pandemic, because as far as I am aware of, cases have broken out from stores in the past,” he said.
Tiong noted, many of the supermarkets do have their MySejahtera QR codes in place and thermometers at their entrances for customers.
However, he said, in most instances, they do not limit the number of people allowed to enter their premises at one time or to maintain minimum physical distancing.
“These supermarkets are for people to buy their daily needs, with more customers on holidays. Unfortunately, the reality is that if there is only one infected person allowed into the store, many people would end up being infected and making the challenge to contain these infections much greater for the health department,” he added.
At the same time, Tiong pointed out that if these supermarkets refuse to cooperate or neglect to implement the necessary guidelines and SOPs, they should be immediately ordered to close so the public would not be put at risk.
He said that the number of new confirmed cases in Bintulu has remained high every day, and there have been 34 cases from a supermarket cluster here alone.
“Supermarkets in Bintulu must not become complacent with Covid-19 prevention SOPs or it would lead to more viral outbreaks.
“The routine of implementing the SOPs cannot be relaxed or without adequate crowd control because becoming complacent is how clusters can form and lead to greater difficulty of containing outbreaks,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Tiong also urged the involvement of the armed forces and police to intervene by enforcing control on the flow of people into various places to ensure SOP compliance as stringent action to suppress further outbreak of Covid-19.
According to Tiong, he also has recommended to the Bintulu Disaster Management Committee yesterday (March 19), that all relevant units must strengthen enforcement of the SOPs to ensure that businesses, companies, and the communities in the district would strictly comply with it.
“It is especially serious when many positive Covid-19 patients are diagnosed without obvious symptoms. It is urgent for us to take this matter seriously to prevent more outbreaks from happening,” he said. — DayakDaily
