Students who breached home quarantine later found to be positive with Covid-19

CORONAVIRUS | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today urged university students who have been allowed to return home to take stock of an incident where a group of undergraduates defied home quarantine rules only to be later tested positive for Covid-19.

University students have been stranded on campus since the movement control order came into force on March 18 but since April 27, the government started ferrying them home in phases.

However, a condition imposed on the students is that they must self-quarantine for 14 days as soon as they arrive home.

"The Health Ministry urges all students to take stock of the incident where a few students from a university who were required to undergo home quarantine but did not abide by the notice under Section 14 of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988.

"They were later found to be positive with Covid-19. They risked infecting high-risk groups such as senior citizens, children or people with a history of chronic disease," he told a press conference in Putrajaya.

Noor Hisham did not reveal the university involved.

To date, 49,019 students have been ferried home.

He said all students who are ferried across states within peninsular Malaysia to return home must self-isolate for 14 days.

He added that for students travelling between East and West Malaysia to return home, they must be tested for Covid-19 and remain in quarantine at home even if they test negative.

This is in contrast to the treatment of Malaysians returning from abroad.

For this category of people, they are required to undergo compulsory isolation at specialised quarantine stations. Home quarantine is not allowed. - Mkini