KUALA LUMPUR — Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today called on community leaders to take on a greater role in protecting the community from COVID-19 infection, saying this will ease the heavy burden now borne by healthcare frontliners.
“It will also be very important in drafting the exit plan from the (ongoing) Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO),” the prime minister said during a video conferencing with Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on the COVID-19 situation.
Muhyiddin is on self-quarantine for 14 days from May 22 after an officer who attended a post-Cabinet meeting the prime minister chaired two days earlier had tested positive for COVID-19.
Malaysia had imposed a two-week MCO on March 18 and extended it by two weeks each time until the imposition of the CMCO on May 4. The CMCO is scheduled to end on June 9.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the country stood at 7,629 as of noon today, with 6,189 recovered cases and 115 deaths. Only 10 new cases were reported over 24 hours up to noon today, the lowest number since March 18.
Muhyiddin said community leaders can educate the people to be more responsible and ensure their compliance with the SOPs stipulated under the CMCO so as to keep the number of cases low and ease the burden of the healthcare frontliners.
In a post uploaded onto his official Facebook page, he said the process of deporting illegal immigrants confirmed to be COVID-19-negative was another matter that was discussed during the 40-minute video conferencing session.
The prime minister said he had directed for the deportation process to be expedited to reduce the risk of the disease spreading among the illegal immigrants being held at immigration detention depots.
As of today, 31,204 foreign nationals have been tested for COVID-19. Up to 1,858 of them tested positive and 1,008 are awaiting the results.
Muhyiddin said that overall, he is satisfied with the achievement in the battle against COVID-19 as reported to him by Ismail Sabri and Dr Noor Hisham.
“I believe that if the whole community can cooperate and shoulder the responsibility of taking care of the respective sections of the community, our country will eventually be successful in terminating the COVID-19 outbreak in the country,” he said.
Muhyiddin, a cancer survivor, also dismissed claims that he is now in Singapore for medical treatment.
“I wish to state that these are false claims and are not true at all. For your information, I am in quarantine at my residence in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur.
“Nevertheless, at a time when the nation is battling the COVID-19 pandemic, I will ensure that discussions are ongoing in planning the strategy to fight the disease,” he said.
— BERNAMA
