Not to get your hopes up, but interstate travel could be back as early as March 18th, if COVID-19 behaves.
Health Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba told the Malay Mail COVID-19 numbers need to drop to manageable levels first, and even so, it will not be a blanket reopening of state borders like what happened last year, to prevent a fresh spike in cases.
“We learnt for a year from the MCO, EMCO, CMCO and the RMCO. So we know that interstate travel restriction is one of the measures needed to reduce case numbers,” he said.
Dr Adham added restricting domestic travel has been undertaken not only in Malaysia but in other countries like Australia, China, South Korea, and even Singapore.
“After March 18th, we will see if the data have shown improvement, as we have already succeeded in bringing down the curve at the moment.”
Senior Minister (Security) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob also pointed out that this will depend on the COVID-19 zone designation of the areas where the journey starts and ends.
“For example, travelling from green state to green state such as Pahang to Terengganu – both are under Recovery MCO, so this may be allowed. But problems can also arise, taking travel from Putrajaya to Melaka as an example. Both are under Recovery MCO, but one will have to travel through Negeri Sembilan, which is under Conditional MCO,” he said.
Ismail added that authorities would need to study the issue carefully before making a decision.
We’ve recently had some promising numbers following the Movement Control Order (MCO) period), with our COVID-19 trajectory lowering into the 1000-mark, with the exception that it bounced back to log 2,063 new cases yesterday (March 4th).
We can make this a reality if we make sure we continue to adhere to SOPs, and that we stay home whenever we can in spite of the eased restrictions in these two weeks.
Stay safe, people!
by Kyle Roshen Jacob