MORE than 500 individuals were arrested yesterday for breaching the movement-control order (MCO), an increase after the country recorded a drop in arrests for the past few days, said Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

The defence minister said, according to the police, most of the arrests involve those taking the opportunity to drive out on the last day of the week during the restriction period.

“A total of 554 were detained. Of these, we remanded 489 and let off 65 on bail. This is an increase after we managed to sustain a low number of arrests for the past few days.

“The police said many decided to go out on a drive since it was a Sunday. We are not only off on Sunday. We are ‘on leave’ everyday under the MCO,” Ismail said during his daily press conference in Putrajaya.

Last Friday, Ismail announced a drop in arrests for the first time since the MCO began, with only 413 individuals detained for violation on Thursday.

On Saturday, he announced a further drop in arrests, with only 368 apprehended on Friday.

He said he hoped the trend would continue, which meant people were abiding by the MCO.

Authorities have stressed the need to stay at home to bring down the number of Covid-19 cases so as to prevent straining the healthcare system.

Malaysia is also racing to prevent a peak of cases in mid-April as predicted by JP Morgan and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research.

The total number of infections as of yesterday was 3,662 after 179 new cases were recorded. The total number of deaths so far is 61.

However, 1,005 patients have also recovered. – April 6, 2020.