CORONAVIRUS | Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob today lauded the government’s decision to impose mandatory quarantine on Malaysians returning from abroad after 17 positive cases were detected among them.

He said a new cluster was potentially avoided as a result as these 17 citizens were prevented from going home and exposing family members to the virus.

Prior to the second phase of the movement control order (MCO), which began on April 1, citizens returning from abroad were allowed to self-quarantine at home.

However, the National Security Council (NSC) later made it mandatory for all those arriving into the country to be quarantined in government-sanctioned centres.

“We believe through the MCO, we can break the Covid-19 chain. Another thing I believe was the right action was to introduce mandatory quarantine for those returning from overseas.

“We know many people were unhappy with this, yet the information we received (from the Health Ministry) showed there were 17 positive cases from among them.

“Imagine if we had let them go home... their families would have been exposed and if these family members went out to the market, surely a new cluster would have started. We were able to contain this,” Ismail said during a press conference at Putrajaya this afternoon. 

Ismail, who is also defence minister, had earlier said there has been a downward trend on positive coronavirus cases over the past few days.

This is based on briefings to the ministers by Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

“From that (briefing) it is clear there is a downward trend on positive Covid-19 cases. This clearly shows the movement restriction under the MCO announced by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is correct,” he said.

Later today, Noor Hisham also reported that another 43 imported Covid-19 cases were detected involving students returning from Indonesia.

Malaysia has been under the MCO since March 18. Phase two of the MCO began on April 1, while phase three began on April 15 and is slated to end on April 28.

During the MCO period, movement is permitted only for essential needs, such as to purchase food and necessities, for work and emergencies. 

Among the restrictions imposed are that only one person allowed in food stores and market per family per trip, only one person in a vehicle, no travelling beyond a 10km radius from home and limited operating hours for e-hailing and delivery services.

The number of new Covid-19 infections in the country dropped to 54 cases yesterday, a new low since the MCO period began and marked the second straight day that newly recorded cases have remained in the double digits. 

As of yesterday, there are a total of 5,305 confirmed cases, of which 3,102 or 58.5 percent of total cases have fully recovered, while 88 patients, or 1.7 percent succumbed to the disease.

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