“Life will not be the same when we complete the third (phase) of the MCO. That means we have to comply with certain health regulations so we can reduce the risk of infection.”

- Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on when the movement control order (MCO) would be lifted.

COMMENT | Andrew Cuomo, the embattled governor of New York who is in a pitched battle with the Trump-led federal government, said something extremely important when he discussed opening up New York.

Cuomo (above) said the state will determine which groups of businesses are essential to the economy and which companies are able to protect employees and the public from further spreading the virus.

He said that reopening commerce in his state, and the rest of the country, in the absence of a vaccine for the coronavirus would hinge on testing people for Covid-19 and tracing the contacts of those people who test positive.

“The more testing, the more open the economy,” Cuomo said.

Our Health director-general, meanwhile, said: “What is important is if we are looking at ending the MCO, we must have an exit strategy, and among our indicators is the reduction in cases that are still being treated, which is the number of cases still able to infect others or still with a high level of infectiousness...”