COMMENT | Throughout this week, there were rumours abound about a "total lockdown" to be implemented either in Selangor, or throughout the country.

This was due to the rise in the Covid-19 daily figures, which over the past few days have remained above 6,000. There was a lot of uncertainties, which gave rise to conjectures and speculation.

People knew people who heard that there was to be a "total movement control order (MCO)". Yet for a few days, nothing official was announced while rumours ran rampant.

The country was then told on Thursday that the National Security Council (NSC) would hold a meeting on the possibility of the so-called total lockdown. This was met with a barrage of criticism from netizens, who could not understand why the NSC would only be meeting the next day when the situation was already dire for the whole week.

Finally, after the much-hyped, much-anticipated meeting took place, a statement was issued by the prime minister to say that the government had agreed to "tighten" the implementation of MCO 3.0 by putting in place additional restrictions on the economic and social sectors.

However, the statement (which was distributed via PDF online), did not provide details of these tighter restrictions, and so the people were told to...