LETTER | The Malaysian movement control order (MCO) differs slightly from the British one just announced by the British prime minister - the salient difference being that a Briton is able to perform one exercise alone or with a family member away from home.

Not everybody in Malaysia is privileged like Kinabatangan parliamentarian Bung Moktar Radin who has a swimming pool and a wide compound. Imagine a young couple with three children in a low-cost flat measuring 600 square feet. To be confined in that space for one month is surely asking too much.

What is the harm in allowing a person to go out walking, running or cycling alone? He is not a threat to anyone else and nobody is a threat to him.

In almost every town and village in Malaysia, you will find groups of citizens gathering in the morning from 6 to 7 at basketball courts, recreation grounds and other open spaces in their neighbourhood. As long as they keep their social distance of one metre, what is the harm in allowing them to pursue their healthy daily routine of tai chi, chi gong, line-dancing, etc?

If the MCO is slightly amended to allow people to exercise alone or with family members or if, in a group, to observe the social distance then we will have our people continuing to maintain good health which is so essential to sustaining a strong immune system to resist Covid-19.

Why should public recreation grounds and parks be put off-limits? People running, hiking or walking in these places are a danger to no one and no one is a danger to them. If only we had allowed people to continue good habits like physical exercise, then that ugly incident in Penang involving a medical doctor and an over-zealous MBPP official would have been avoided.

I strongly urge the Malaysian powers-that-be to reconsider the MCO. They should allow people to exercise (with social distancing) and reopen public recreation ground and parks.