Reopen more economic sectors? MOH wants to look at conditional MCO results first

CORONAVIRUS | The Health Ministry wants to see the outcome of the conditional movement control order (MCO) first before advising Putrajaya on reopening more economic sectors.

Its director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said they are monitoring the situation and would be able to tell in two weeks' time.

"We have given relaxation through the conditional MCO which started on May 4, and hopefully in two weeks, we will monitor the progress to see if there is an increase in the number of new cases or otherwise.

"Before more economic sectors can be reopened, especially those like hair styling services, we need to monitor the situation before advising the prime minister," he told a press conference in Putrajaya.

Noor Hisham said this when answering a question on whether the ministry would consider allowing hairstyling and barber services to resume operations like other economic sectors.

He said the health authority was not allowing hair salons to reopen at this juncture as there had been cases in other countries where the Covid-19 virus spread between hairstylists and their customers.

"So far we are not allowing hair salons, because there are reports in Japan and the US over infection of Covid-19 among hairstylists there and their customers," he said.

Since Monday, the government has introduced conditional MCO, which is a more relaxed approach in its movement control mechanism to break the chain of Covid-19 infection compared to the first phases of MCO.

Under conditional MCO, most economic sectors have been allowed to resume their operations in full, provided that they have to strictly abide by standard operating procedures (SOPs) that have been tailored by MOH according to each industry.

However, several sectors especially those that require close contacts between persons like hairstyling services and massage parlours are yet to be given the green light to reopen.

The International Trade and Industry Ministry had initially approved for hair salons to operate during MCO last month but had to retract the decision following wide objections from the public. - Mkini