KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — The recovery movement control order (RMCO) announced by the prime minister today is backed by the Health Ministry, said its director-general.

This latest phase which starts on Wednesday (June 10) is to balance both the need to preserve lives and for economic considerations.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was responding to a question of whether the government’s decision to impose the RMCO was done in consultation with the Health Ministry, and whether the Health Ministry has an adequate strategy to prevent a new wave of Covid-19 cases as seen in South Korea after restrictions were relaxed there.

Dr Noor Hisham added the RMCO is a new phase in a balanced approach which will act as a "soft landing” that would pave the way for an exit strategy for Malaysia.

"Certainly, the decision, the advice comes from MOH. So we have looked into strategic planning, success in MCO (movement control order), CMCO (conditional movement control order) and now we are moving towards RMCO. This will actually balance the life and livelihood of our country,” he said at a press conference this evening.

Surveillance and monitoring under RMCO

Dr Noor Hisham stressed the Health Ministry’s active efforts to detect Covid-19 cases will continue, with the ministry not letting down its guard despite the opening up of more sectors — including economic, social, educational, religious sectors — under the upcoming RMCO phase.

"And most importantly, although we are allowing the RMCO, the surveillance will continue in terms of action from public health, and more importantly is to identify the cases, so we are doing the surveillance... We hope by doing so, we can give the report every day in terms of any surge in cases in terms of locality or target group,” he said.

"So now the most important strategy planning for RMCO is the surveillance and monitoring process,” he added.

He noted that the daily number of new Covid-19 cases have been generally low under the CMCO without drastic spikes, noting that such numbers among Malaysians have been close to single digits.

During the RMCO period from June 10 to August 31, the Health Ministry will either impose the enhanced movement control order (EMCO) or semi-enhanced movement control order (SEMCO) in a locality if infections are detected, to enable screenings of all residents there for Covid-19.

International travel in future if RMCO successful?

Dr Noor Hisham also pointed out that Malaysia is now controlling locally-transmitted cases, with international borders still closed off and with travel only allowed between states in Malaysia under the RMCO.

"So if we can control locally, then if we succeed on August 31, then probably our plan will come in terms of preparing to ease the restrictions of international borders.

"So this is part of our exit strategy, this is a soft landing. We have not moved forward to the exit strategy yet, but this is soft landing,” he said, noting that Malaysia can move on to planning its exit strategy if the daily number of new Covid-19 cases is still at two-digits or single digits by August 31.

If Malaysia’s Covid-19 controls prove to be good, Dr Noor Hisham suggested that the authorities may look into allowing international travel with strict conditions and standard operating procedures, such as for countries with low number of Covid-19 cases, as well as looking into whether those coming into Malaysia will undergo the 14-day quarantine abroad or locally.

Even without a vaccine for Covid-19 being developed yet, Dr Noor Hisham said it was not impossible for Malaysia to break the chain of transmission of the virus, as proven by the country’s success in doing so when it came to other coronaviruses — SARS and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) — which also had no vaccine.

Lessons learnt from the country’s experience in dealing with SARS and MERS-Cov was that public health action and compliance with standard operating procedures such as social distancing, wearing face masks and washing of hands could be effective to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus, he said.

"However, RMCO will only succeed with the compliance of everyone to SOPs and the community’s involvement in making new norms a culture in our daily lives. Therefore, the Health Ministry asks the public to continue to comply with the SOPs and stay vigilant to ensure the chain of transmission is broken.

"We take care of ourselves, we take care of our family, and we also take care of our community, and we take care of our country. If not us, who else?” Dr Noor Hisham said.