Ismail Sabri allays fears that balik raya won’t be possible

BERA: There won’t be anymore blanket movement control orders or travel restrictions, including during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration this year, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

If cases increase, the enhanced MCO targeted approach will be used in the affected area, Bernama reported him as saying.

Ismail Sabri said the economic and social sectors, as well as interstate travel, have been allowed to go back to normal.

“As there has been an increase in cases in the past few days, people have speculated that they may not be able to balik raya.

“Please don’t worry, we will not shut down the whole country, states or districts again.

“We will focus on the areas with a lot of infections by enforcing the enhanced MCO.

“If a village is subject to it, then only those from that village will be disallowed from returning,” he told a press conference at the Bera Community Development Department (Kemas) office here, yesterday.

Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri, who is also Bera member of Parliament, said the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the Johor state election will be tabled in a special session of the National Security Council (NSC) attended by representatives from the opposition bloc.

He said the Health Ministry (MOH) will submit a detailed SOP proposal as the priority is to prevent a jump in cases due to the polls, besides taking into account the number of new cases which have hit 4,000 over the past few days.

“We can’t be complacent and need to continue to curb the pandemic even if we say we need to live with Covid-19,” said Ismail Sabri.

“We hope that cases drop to below 1,000 so that we can declare that Malaysia has gone from the pandemic to endemic phase.

“We leave it to the MOH to determine the SOP in detail and I can call a special meeting of the NSC to discuss it.”