THE Pudu wet market and its surrounding areas are not under the enhanced movement-control order (EMCO), said Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

The senior minister said they are not under a total lockdown, and residents are allowed to move around.

“In some situations, we will only administer control, and that does not make it a total lockdown like the EMCO,” he told a daily press conference on coronavirus-related security matters in Putrajaya today.

“Under administrative control, residents are allowed to go out and buy things. They are only required to be tested for Covid-19.”

He said the authorities are primarily interested in carrying out testing to determine whether there are infections.

Patients will then be sent to hospital for treatment, he said.

This morning, soldiers were seen setting up barbed-wire fencing in areas surrounding the Pudu market. It follows Covid-19 screening on more than 500 migrant workers at the market and in nearby areas.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Mazlan Lazim had said it was not a lockdown, but an exercise to “empower” the MCO.

“It’s not an EMCO or a tightening of the MCO. It’s similar to what we did at the Jalan Raja Bot wet market in Chow Kit.”

The Chow Kit market was shut last month for sanitation work, and traders were ordered to close their stalls due to the high number of virus cases there.

Barbed wire was also put up around the market as the authorities conducted large-scale testing. – May 15, 2020.