RESTAURANTS are not following standard operating procedures (SOPs), such as social distancing, to curb the spread of Covid-19, Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today.

People are beginning to take social distancing for granted under the recovery movement-control order (RMCO), which allows dine-ins and people to go out in groups for meals, he added.

“We imposed social distancing in restaurants and we allowed some leeway such as two person to a table, and even four people to a table, as long as the there is distancing.

“But we see that people do not follow. They sit more than four people at one table and there is no social distancing. 

“This can lead to an increase of Covid-19 cases and there is already a ‘restaurant cluster’,” he told a press conference in Parliament on the RMCO today.

He did not mention the restaurant but the Health Ministry recently announced two Covid-19 cases detected at a restaurant in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.

Authorities are checking all restaurants nationwide, Ismail Sabri added.

“Action can be taken against the customer as well as the owner. We may even close down the restaurant,” he said. – July 23, 2020.