‘KL wholesale market area under enhanced MCO after 28 cases, one death’

CORONAVIRUS | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said they had to impose the enhanced movement control order (MCO) at the Kuala Lumpur wholesale market and its surrounding areas after 28 cases of Covid-19, as well as one related death, were detected there.

“From the early investigations that we have done and from the active test detection, 2,064 cases have been sampled and from the sampling, we have 28 positive cases plus one death in that area.

“Because of the increase of cases and one death, we need to focus on the location, the target group and the high-risk group that is basically in the Kuala Lumpur wholesale market area and we have taken action to enhance the MCO in that area,” Noor Hisham said at the daily Health Ministry press conference on the Covid-19 situation today.

It was reported this morning that the residential areas in the vicinity of the Kuala Lumpur wholesale market have been placed under an enhanced MCO.

Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had said the enhanced MCO for the area will last until May 3 and that it is predominantly occupied by Rohingya refugees.

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said in the press conference that foreigners who do not have or have expired travel or work visas are encouraged to come forward to get tested.

“Regardless, the Health Ministry recommends that they come forward so that we can do screening. This is important.

“The Health Ministry’s main focus is to make sure they do not get infected or infect others, so we must perform screening on them,” he said.

Today, Noor Hisham announced that there were 36 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest since the implementation of the MCO on March 18.

This brings the total number of cases to 5,425, while there remains 2,041 active cases, namely patients who are still under treatment and can infect others.

Of the 36 new cases, 24 were from community transmission while 12 of them were imported cases, he said.

From the 12 imported cases, 11 of them are from the Magetan, Jawa Timur student cluster while one is from the United States.

Another 98 patients have recovered from Covid-19 and have been discharged from the hospital.

As such, a total of 3,295 patients have recovered, or 60.7 percent of total cases.

Of those under treatment, 45 are in the intensive care unit (ICU), down from 46 yesterday.

Of the patients in ICU, 28 are on ventilators, up from 26 yesterday.

The released data is updated up to noon today. - Mkini