Health ministry say orange zones could go under CMCO

 

Health DG Dr Noor Hisham says the ministry need not wait for a district to become a red zone before imposing the CMCO.

PUTRAJAYA: The health ministry is considering the conditional movement control order (CMCO) being applied for orange zones in the country as an early measure to prevent Covid-19 from spreading further.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the ministry was mulling over the decision following the CMCO in the Klang Valley where Selangor, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur all went under lockdown although the Klang district was the only red zone at the time.

He explained that orange zones were districts with 21 to 40 active cases.

“Perhaps we should be more proactive and consider (the CMCO) before every district becomes a red zone,” he said at a press conference today.

“If there is an orange zone, that could be an alert and we may take action.”

Noor Hisham said the ministry was also looking at tightening the CMCO SOPs, in which the economic sector would still be allowed to operate but all other sectors had stricter regulations.

He said this would be part of the effort to reduce people’s mobility in densely populated areas.

“If everyone stayed at home and complied with the SOPs for the next two weeks, the chain of infections could be broken,” he added.

Yesterday, the National Security Council (MKN) announced it would be making recommendations to Putrajaya to address the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the Klang Valley.

Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob had said there was still room to impose further restrictions on the economic sector without fully shutting it down, suggesting that the operating hours for businesses could be amended. - FMT