WITH the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of movement control order (MCO3.0) to be tightened beginning tomorrow, Penang elected representatives have offered their differing views over the further restrictions.
Some of them are supportive of a total lockdown to tackle the rising cases and infectivity rate while others opined other ways to improve the current situation.
Buletin Mutiara has managed to speak to a few state assemblymen and obtained their feedback.
Below are their respective comments:
Goh Choon Aik, Bukit Tambun assemblyman:
“Personally, I am disappointed because the tighter SOPs only involve changing of business operation hours.
“While KKM (Ministry of Health) encourages Malaysian to self-quarantine, the Federal Government is allowing 60% of private sector employees back to workplace. This is too much if compared with the early MCO last year which only permitted 30%.
“Immediately, every state in the country needs to use ‘deep throat saliva’ screening for all factory employees to detect hidden positive cases and create a safe working place.
“Secondly, government and hotels need to work together to create more quarantine centres for non-symptomatic patients at their own cost to break the cluster between family members.
“More vaccination centres also should be set up with sufficient vaccine supply, and the workforce group should be vaccinated as soon as possible without delay.”
Lee Khai Loon, Machang Bubuk assemblyman:
“As the number of Covid-19 cases keeps increasing, hospitals are overwhelmed so much so the intensive care unit (ICU) beds have also been fully occupied. There must be drastic measures taken, such as tightening of SOPs, especially on social and religious activities.
“Work from home is also very crucial but there are still a lot of economic activities that required people to go out and work.
“The only viable way out of this pandemic is through vaccination. Thus, we need to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible in order to curb the Covid-19 infections.”
Dr Norlela Ariffin, Penanti assemblyman and state Agrotech and Food Security, Rural Development and Health Committee chairman:
“I would like to urge Penangites to practise ‘self-lockdown’ to effectively curb the spread of Covid-19 infection.
“But, they must have self-discipline, motivation and empathy to do it.
“By imposing self-lockdown, we can help to reduce the risk of the virus transmissions and thus helping medical frontliners who are working around the clock to treat Covid-19 patients.
“So, please stay at home and avoid gatherings. After all, it is self-discipline and self-regulation that will help more in stemming the tide of infections.”
Chris Lee, Pulau Tikus assemblyman:
“I am supportive of a total lockdown to bring down the cases and its infectivity rate. Our priority now is to save human lives as the situation is very alarming.
“If the current restrictions do not yield any positive results, then all our efforts will be in vain. We have passed through a series of MCOs and I hope we can really tackle the soaring cases.
“What we can do is to implement short-term lockdown before reopening the economic sector gradually. I believe when a lockdown is implemented, cases will be reduced.”
A. Kumaresan, Batu Uban assemblyman:
“Personally, I don’t understand why the Federal Government does not want to implement a lockdown once and for all for at least three weeks.
“With the cases rising, these restrictions will not help much and the issue will be dragged further.
“I don’t believe the industry players could not provide assistance or relief to their staff during this short-term lockdown period.
“It’s just whether they want it or not.”
Story by Edmund Lee and Riadz Akmal
Pix by Law Suun Ting