BINTULU: Supermarkets here must not become complacent with Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) or it would lead to more viral outbreaks, said Bintulu Member of Parliament Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing.
“The routine of implementing the SOPs cannot be relaxed or without adequate crowd control. Becoming complacent is how clusters can form and lead to greater difficulty of containing outbreaks,” he said in a statement today.
He further urged the Bintulu Divisional Disaster Management Committee (DDMC) to strengthen enforcement by all relevant units to ensure that businesses, companies, and the communities in the district would strictly comply with the SOPs.
Tiong also said if the supermarkets refused to cooperate or neglect to implement the necessary guidelines and SOPs, they should be immediately ordered to close so the public would not be put at risk.
He noted that many supermarkets do place MySejahtera QR codes and thermometers at their entrances for customers.
However, in most instances, they do not limit the number of people allowed to enter their premises at one time or to maintain minimum physical distancing.
“These supermarkets are for people to buy their daily needs, with more customers on holidays.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that if there is only one infected person allowed into the store, many people would end up being infected and making the challenge to contain these infections much greater for the health department.
“Therefore, it is imperative to set a limit on the number of customers allowed into a store at any given time, according to SOPs.
“Violators of these limits must be fined and a lockdown ordered. We must do this in order to curb the pandemic,” he explained.
Tiong also mentioned that the number of new confirmed cases in Bintulu has remained high every day, and there have been 34 cases from a supermarket cluster here alone.
“The authorities cannot continue to tolerate businesses’ lapses of compliance with SOPs. Do not take the efforts of frontliners fighting the pandemic for granted!
“I urge the armed forces and police to intervene by enforcing the flow of people into various places to ensure compliance to the SOPs as a stringent action to suppress further outbreaks of Covid-19,” he continued.
