THE movement control order was introduced to stop Malaysians from taking advantage of the school holidays to travel abroad, said Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said health officials had predicted a third wave of Covid-19 infections, or a “tsunami”, three weeks ago, taking into account that thousands of civil servants had planned family vacations overseas.

He said he was told one ministry had approved travel plans for 8,000 of their staff to go to Japan, South Korea and other places abroad.

“This was from just one ministry. With parents and two children, there would have been possibly 32,000 Malaysians going overseas,” Dr Noor Hisham said in Putrajaya today.

“What we were sure was that, during the school holidays, many Malaysians would go overseas.

“What we did not predict, however, was the infection at the tabligh event,” he said.

He had said 62% of Covid-19 infections in the country are linked to the tabligh gathering held at the Sri Petaling Mosque from February 27 to March 3.

More than half of the 26 deaths to date are also linked to this cluster.

Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry feared that there would be an exponential spike in cases if many people were allowed to visit high-risk countries.  

“So, based on that prediction, and given that we don’t have the capacity to place all of them in quarantine centres, the best way was to implement the MCO.” – March 27, 2020.