More hotels to be turned into quarantine centres

At present 17,008 people are undergoing the mandatory two weeks’ quarantine to ensure they do not have Covid-19. They include Malaysians who return from abroad. (Bernama pic)

PUTRAJAYA: Putrajaya has called on more hotels to offer their premises to be converted to quarantine centres as the nation combats the Covid-19 pandemic.

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Ismail Sabri Yaakob said such hotels will be offered sales and services tax (SST) exemption as an incentive.

“I hope many hotels will come forward to help because the government has already announced the SST exemption for participating hotels.

“I hope hotels can work with the government to help us in this matter of quarantine centres,” he said at a press conference today.

Hotels interested may contact the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) or the tourism, arts and culture ministry, he said.

A total of 190 quarantine centres are currently operational with 17,008 people undergoing mandatory quarantine, including 1,589 Malaysians who returned from abroad yesterday.

Ismail said 1,565 people were detained yesterday on the second day of Phase 3 of the movement control order (MCO), higher than the 1,057 detained the day before.

Of the total, 1,381 were remanded while 184 were granted bail by the police.

He said the cumulative number of individuals arrested was 13,639 as of yesterday, with 544 of them already charged in court.

‘Up to police to take action’

When asked on allegations on social media of certain prominent individuals or VIPs flouting the MCO and having gatherings, Ismail said no one was above the law.

He said he would leave it to the police to probe the matter since reports had already been lodged on the issue.

Ismail cautioned the people against being overconfident following the low number of positive Covid-19 cases recorded over the past week, reiterating that the outbreak was not over yet.

“We only had 69 cases yesterday and these are good developments. But if we see good signs, then we should help the government to ensure the number of Covid-19 positive cases goes down to zero.

“By right, we should continue limiting our movements to ensure we can reach zero new cases,” he said.

If the number of cases spike due to more people leaving their homes, the MCO might not end so soon, he warned.

“I’m sure we all want the MCO to end so we can go back to our normal lives, but that is in your hands.”

Yesterday, International Trade and Industry Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali had said the MCO may be extended beyond April 28 but with more sectors open for business.

“Based on our discussions, the MCO may still be in place but we may have to see what are the areas that we can relax and open up, to strike a balance between the requirements of the health of the people and also the economic priorities,” he said.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST DATA ON THE COVID-19 SITUATION IN MALAYSIA

Fake or not? Check our quick fake news buster here.