Malaysian lockdown to continue, more financial assistance to be announced

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's movement control order (MCO) will not end on Monday (June 28), Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has announced.

He said the MCO will continue until the threshold of new Covid-19 cases reported a day drops to below 4,000, Bernama reported on Sunday.

The prime minister said the government will announce more comprehensive assistance to all groups of society on Monday or Tuesday. The country entered the current total lockdown on June 1. It was supposed to last until June 14, but has now been extended twice.

On June 15, Muhyiddin announced the national recovery plan to steer the country out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said the plan was divided into four phases with the current lockdown being the first phase where daily Covid-19 cases remain high and the healthcare system is at full capacity. The vaccination rate is also still low.

Phase Two will be implemented when cases fall below 4,000 and 10 per cent of the population has been vaccinated.

Phase Three will be implemented when numbers fall below 2,000 a day and 40 per cent have been vaccinated, while Phase Four will take place when cases fall below 500 daily and 60 per cent have received both doses of the vaccine.

He projected that Phase Three will be expected to begin in September or October, while Phase Four will start in November.

By Saturday, the pandemic had claimed 4,884 lives in Malaysia.

Director-general of health Noor Hisham Abdullah said there was a marginal decrease in the number of intensive care unit admissions to 866. Of this number, 435 were on respiratory support.

He said new cases outnumbered recoveries with 5,803 new infections against 5,193 recoveries.

With this, the cumulative total of recoveries stood at 662,932, while the national caseload was up to 728,462.

Active cases, on the other hand, was at 60,646.

The government has ramped up its vaccination drive and up to Saturday 7,226,949 doses had been administered nationwide, said Health Minister Adham Baba.

Of this figure, he said 5,204,993 people have received their first shot, while 2,021,956 people have received their second dose. THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT