[ UPDATE 1/1/2021 17:45 ]: Malaysia’s RMCO has been extended until 31st March 2020. The 3 month extension has been confirmed by the Ministry of Health.
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As we welcome 2021 in the final hours yesterday, it appears that the Prime Minister’s New Year address had left out “one more thing“. There were no updates on the extension of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) which expires on 31st December 2020 at 11:59pm. At approximately 12:30am, the National Security Council (NSC) has pushed several federal gazettes via Telegram which suggests that the RMCO rules has been extended by 3 months until 31st March 2021.
According to the Gazette (P.U. A 399) for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Regulations 2020 that was issued by Health Minister Dr Adham Baba, the regulations under the previous RMCO period (1st September – 31st December 2020) will be continued for the period from 1st January to 31st March 2021. Under the regulation, violators can be fined not more than RM1,000 or jailed for a term not exceeding 6 months, or both.
Apart from the shared gazettes, there’s still no official announcement on the RMCO extension from the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Health and the NSC. The NSC website was last updated on 21st December and is still showing the old SOP documents with 31st December 2020 as the end date of enforcement.
MalaysiaKini had tweeted at 10:42pm yesterday that Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob will be making an announcement later today. This will be the first time an MCO-related extension is announced after its expiry.
While RMCO is extended on the national level, the states and territories of Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor are still placed under CMCO until 14th January 2021 due to high number of new cases reported daily. As of yesterday, Malaysia has recorded a total of 113,010 COVID-19 cases and 471 deaths. There are currently 23,598 active cases remaining which is a record high since the start of the pandemic.
Thanks @mhafizan for the tip!
