KUCHING: The Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) does not apply to Sarawak as the state has its own ordinance.
Senior Minister and Minister of Defence Ismail Sabri last Monday clarified that the Act applied to all states except Sarawak.
Minister in the Chief Minister’s Office (Integrity and Ombudsman), Datuk Talib Zulpilip said that this shows Ismail respects the state’s ordinance and autonomy in assessing the situation, thereby enabling the state its rights to make own decisions and act accordingly.
“Let us look at relaxation of interstate travelling. For instance it is easy for a person in Selangor going to neighbouring state Negeri Sembilan as they are just next door neighbours, setanah!
“It is akin to us travelling from Kuching to Serian, but let it is different if we look at travelling between Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak. This is due the fact that we are separated and protected by a natural barrier the South China Sea,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
Talib opined that in our assessment, the state needs to reduce entry into Sarawak; and for the time being, we should be allowed to do so.
“However, the exemption does not mean we do not comply. We look at the whole picture and apply recovery movement control order (RMCO) according to our needs and situation. All these while we have complied with the national policies with respect to movement control order (MCO)as well as conditional movement control order (CMCO).
“I am sure Sarawak will also be complying with the RMCO; after all, we have our State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) to look into this,” he said.
Adding to that, Talib also expressed his appeal to fellow Sarawakians to strictly adhere to the standard operations procedures (SOPs) that have been issued by the Ministry of Health (MoH).
According to him, the SOPs are based on international practice of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“They are simple, and it costs virtually nothing to practise. A few of them are simple personal hygiene including washing hands regularly; avoiding crowded place and no gathering such as weddings, “berambeh” and others.
“We all know for instance that we love to have drinks at the stalls, kopitiam and others with friends, as it is our culture. But for the time being, we have do less of such things and must comply with SOPs including practising social distancing by not sitting too close,” he explained.
Talib also advised the public to get involved in healthy activities such as doing exercise, taking fresh air and getting some sunlight.
“Social distancing must be practised, and it is within our power to do so, as RMCO does not indicate that Covid-19 is truly over, not yet anyway.
“It is undertaken because the risk of infection is already reduced and there is the urgent need to make life less restrictive. It is needed to kick start the economy. Always keep this in mind,” he said.
