KUCHING: The authorities have been urged to strengthen their controls of isolation centres and lockdowns of longhouses to prevent uncooperative persons under home surveillance orders (HSO) from breaking the quarantine rules.
In raising this matter, Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said there must be an immediate investigation into instances of people wearing home quarantine wristbands going out in public.
“Not only does this behaviour cause public worry and anxiety, but it also increases the difficulty of containing the pandemic.
“And if it is a result of loopholes in the monitoring and active case detection (ACD) process, the authorities must ensure that the breaches do not repeat,” he said in a Facebook post recently.
Persons under HSO, he said, must strictly comply with the quarantine instructions issued by the authorities without exception to prevent the virus from inadvertently spreading to others.
“These orders must be taken extremely seriously to contain further outbreaks of Covid-19 from happening in Bintulu,” he said.
He stressed that quarantined persons can only move about freely upon obtaining a release order from the Health Department and have their wristbands cut at a designated hospital.
“If they violate these orders during the quarantine period, the authorities can invoke Section 22(B) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 against the guilty persons,” he said.
Tiong said that it is understandable that a 14-day quarantine period can be a long ordeal for some, but it is a critical period of the pandemic, and everyone has the responsibility to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.
“Even if a person has no obvious symptoms of infection, it must not be left to chance. Just think about it. Even with just small momentary negligence in quarantine could lead to more patients infected, needing quarantine, observation, and treatment.
“The inconvenience caused can increase exponentially for the entire population, and strain the frontliners further,” he stressed.
He added the Government is doing its best to strike a balance between prevention and movement control with opening up economic activities to preserve the livelihoods of the people.
“Countries, globally are now preparing for economic recovery. If Malaysia’s infection curve is not flattened soon, we would be left far behind in recovery.
“Therefore, it is only when the whole country works together against the pandemic can we all get into recovery mode,” said Tiong.
