Govt to gazette wearing of face masks, says Noor Azmi

CORONAVIRUS | The government is in the process of gazetting the order on compulsory wearing of face mask in public places as soon as possible to contain the spread of Covid-19 infection, said Deputy Health Minister Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali.

He said the authorities are discussing to set a gazette date soon.

“Meanwhile we encourage the people to wear a face mask in crowded public places,” Noor Azmi (above) said at a media conference in the Parliament building today.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in a special message on the latest recovery movement control order (MCO) development on Monday, said the government was considering making the wearing of face masks compulsory as the Covid-19 threat is still not over.

He said details on the move will be announced when the related regulation is finalised.

This followed a global rise of Covid-19 cases including in Malaysia and several countries have made the face mask compulsory while going out including Singapore.

Commenting on the Covid-19 situation, Noor Azmi said the spike in local transmissions and active cases is worrying, more so with the creation of new clusters.

“We are ready if cases increase further. Our worries now are on how we want to control it as we found home quarantine to be ineffective. 

“So we were relieved with the decision to withdraw home quarantine and to enforce compulsory quarantine at isolation stations,” he added.

Noor Azmi described individuals who defy the quarantine order as irresponsible as they are putting others at risk. 

“We will be sending police to act against those who deliberately violate the order,” he said.

On a woman whose picture showed her eating at a restaurant in Perak with the home quarantine wristband on, he said the Health Ministry has conducted contact tracing on her family members and individuals linked to her.

He also said the ministry would be beefing up its team in Sarawak to evaluate the implementation of the recovery MCO especially in areas with infection.

Yesterday, another new cluster was detected in Sarawak bringing the overall total to eight clusters reported in the state so far.

The new cluster also raised the number of positive Covid-19 cases in Sarawak to double digits when 11 new cases were reported yesterday.

- Bernama