Muhyiddin Yassin to announce new measures to tackle surge of COVID-19 cases at 6pm today

[ UPDATE 11/1/2021 19:10 ]: PM has declared two week MCO for several states including the Klang Valley and Sabah. More details here.

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Following the recent spike in new COVID-19 cases in the country, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will be announcing new movement control order (MCO) measures and restrictions to control the pandemic. Malaysia has been recording over 2,000 new cases daily for the past 6 days.

The announcement is happening at 6pm today (11th January 2021) and it will be streamed live through multiple platforms including RTM, Bernama TV, TV3 and Astro Awani. As revealed by Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, the government aims to tighten SOPs especially for the social sector.

It’s likely that interstate and interdistrict travel will be restricted as recommended by the Ministry of Health. Interstate travel which was allowed since 7th December 2020 is believed to have lead to several new COVID-19 clusters.

Ismail Sabri has said yesterday that he’s confident that the government will not impose a total lockdown like the first MCO that was introduced in March 2020. He also said whatever the decision is, Malaysians will be given ample time to prepare and there’s no need to panic.

Malaysia currently has a total of 135,992 total cases with 551 deaths recorded so far. There are currently 27,332 active cases with 171 in ICU and 76 requiring respirators. Health D-G, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that based on the infectivity rate of 1.2, Malaysia may record as high as 8,000 new daily cases by the 3rd week of March 2021.

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