PETALING JAYA: The National Security Council (NSC) has decided to tighten the implementation of the current movement control order (MCO) with more restrictions on the social and economic sectors, says the Prime Minister’s Office.
The PMO said the council, after a special meeting on Friday (May 21) chaired by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and attended by state government heads, agreed that more effort need to be made to flatten the Covid-19 infection curve.
The PMO also said that further restrictions, as suggested during the meeting, will be announced by Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob who is also the Defence Minister on Saturday (May 22).
It also said that the NSC special meeting involved state governments to account for the situation in their own states and to hear their views on efforts to stop the Covid-19 transmission.
“The NSC special meeting weighed the discussions and analysis presented and decided unanimously to agree to tighten the implementation of MCO 3.0 which is currently in place with added restrictions on the social and economic sectors.
“The meeting analysed the presentation of the Health Ministry on the latest situation of Covid-19 cases including the infectivity rate and proposals to control the transmission of Covid-19," said the PMO in a statement after the meeting.
It said the current status of the MCO 3.0, which is scheduled to end on June 7, was also discussed.
“The SOPs for MCO 3.0 were tightened including the restrictions on inter-state and inter-district travel, as well as restrictions on social, sports and recreational activities, and physical meetings and conferences.
“However, the transmission within the community has increased and with new Covid-19 aggressive variants, the efforts to flatten the infectivity rate is taking a long time, ” said the PMO.
The statement comes after much speculation if the government will impose a full-scale lockdown as was implemented in March 2020 to curb the surge of the pandemic.
In recent days, the number of Covid-19 cases has increased to more than 6,000 cases daily, prompting calls from various parties for more effort to be made by the government to contain the infection.
However, some argued that although Selangor is the current state with the highest number of cases, closing down the state, which is the main economic hub of the country, may cost the country billions in losses daily and cripple the nation’s economy.
