Muhyiddin Yassin to announce new restrictions to tackle surge of new COVID-19 cases on Monday

[ UPDATE 11/01/2021 16:21 ]: Muhyiddin Yassin will address the nation at 6pm this evening to provide an update on the movement control order. More details here.

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During today’s National Security Council briefing, Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has revealed that the government is looking at immediate measures to tackle the recent spike of new COVID-19 cases in Malaysia. The Prime Minister is expected to make an announcement next Monday.

According to Ismail Sabri, the government considers tightening SOPs especially for the social sector. At the moment, Malaysia is currently placed under the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) until the 31st of March 2021. Meanwhile, the states and territories of Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Sabah are currently under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) until 14th January 2021.

Yesterday, Malaysia has hit a record high of 3,027 new cases which brings the total number of caes to 128,465. Health D-G Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has recently shared that Malaysia’s current R0 infectivity rate is between 1.1 and 1.2. At the current rate, we could be seeing daily cases as high as 8,000 by the 3rd week of March 2021.

There’s a possibility that the government may reintroduce restrictions on interstate and interdistrict travel which was lifted on 7th December 2020. On top of that, there could be new passenger limit per vehicle which was also lifted last month. Dr Noor Hisham has said recently that the Ministry of Health is studying new containment strategies following the spike of new cases after interstate travel was permitted.

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