Police and Armed Forces personnel conduct checks on vehicles at a roadblock at Bandar Sri Menjalara June 1, 2021. — Picture by Hari Anggara
JOHOR BARU, June 18 — The government’s efforts in implementing movement control order (MCO) 3.0 or total lockdown has shown positive signs and reduced the infectivity rate or Covid-19 R-naught (Rt) in the country.
Senior Minister, who is also International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali said following the projection of the Ministry of Health (MOH) recently, the daily Covid-19 cases in the country could have exceeded 13,000 cases on June 14 if the restriction had not been implemented.
“We succeeded in lowering (the number of new Covid-19 cases) to 4,949 cases on June 14.
“Why did this happen? Because of the firm action taken by the government in implementing the total lockdown. This is already a success in containing the spread of the pandemic,” he told a media conference after visiting the industrial vaccination centre at the Austin International Convention Centre (AICC) here, today.
He said this when asked to comment on the statements of several quarters who claimed that the implementation of MCO 3.0 since June 1 would not be successful in reducing the number of Covid-19 cases.
Asked about the government’s efforts in controlling workplace cluster, Mohamed Azmin said among the measures to reduce the proliferation of Covid-19 was by implementing MCO 3.0 aimed at reducing people’s movement.
“This has been repeatedly explained by MOH that we should take more stringent measures to control movement with strict standard operating procedures (SOP) to ensure people’s health and their well-being is looked after,” he said.
Commenting on the vaccination centre at AICC under the Public-Private Partnership Industrial Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (Pikas), he said the vaccination centre was the second in Johor and would start operating on June 28. — Bernama