INSTEAD of a blanket ban on outdoor exercise and recreational activities in movement-control order (MCO) areas, Putrajaya should study the data from its new Covid-19 hotspot identification technology before making such decisions, said Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming.

He was referring to the Hotspot Identification for Dynamic Engagement (HIDE) technology developed to identify Covid-19 hotspots for measures to be taken so as to prevent them from becoming virus clusters.

“Since a new hotspot identification system has been developed by and is now being applied, I call upon the authorities to use the past MySejahtera data (assuming it has been stored properly and not deleted) to identify how many clusters were created as a result of outdoor jogging and exercise.”

Ong said the same could be applied to watching movies in cinemas and exercising in gyms. 

“If the number of clusters are not large (which I think will be the case), then the National Security Council (NSC) should immediately reverse the ban on outdoor jogging and exercise and allow gyms and cinemas to reopen with the already strict standard operating procedure in place,” the DAP lawmaker said in a statement today. 

A new lockdown was imposed in six districts in Selangor and entire Kuala Lumpur effective yesterday and today, respectively, to break the chain of Covid-19 transmissions after these states continuously reported high daily cases. 

Following the decision, the Youth and Sports Ministry yesterday said that gyms, sports and recreational activities in MCO areas must cease. 

In contrast, however, the Selangor government has allowed certain sporting, outdoor exercise and recreational activities to take place, as long as SOP like physical distancing and no group exercises are adhered to. 

Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal tweeted last night that the decision to ban sporting and recreational activities was made by the Health Ministry (MoH) and NSC after evaluating existing data and science. 

“Evaluation has been made by MoH and NSC. As a sports enthusiast of course we are saddened by this restriction but I’m pretty sure MoH and NSC have deployed all necessary scientific tool and dataset before arriving at this decision. Hopefully, this will get better,” he tweeted. 

However, several Twitter users took issue with his post, saying the decision did not make sense when other closer contact activities like shopping for food was allowed.

In response to a complaint, Wan Fayhsal tweeted this morning that the matter would be raised again in the next NSC meeting. 

The decision to ban all sporting and recreational activities also didn’t go well with medical professionals, one of them being infectious disease expert Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, who said the risk of contracting Covid-19 outdoor was about 18 times lower than indoor. 

The criticism of medical experts also made Ong question Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s “targeted approach” to control the transmission of the coronavirus. 

Ong said such an approach is nowhere applied in the current MCO. 

“The prime minister announced in a speech that a more targeted approach to control the spread of Covid-19 virus would be used, including stricter SOP.

“Unfortunately, we have not seen this being applied in the policy announcement under MCO 3.0,” he said. 

On March 17, Muhyiddin said the government will implement a more targeted approach to control Covid-19 infectivity based on data and science and may not have to enforce the MCO anymore. 

Considering there are no adverse number of Covid-19 clusters recorded in the sporting, recreational and certain economic sectors, Ong said the HIDE analysis also should be conducted for other economic activities such as dining in. 

“If there are some restaurants and outlets that have been the source of Covid-19 clusters in the past, then these places should be investigated and closed down temporarily if the SOP was not strictly followed. 

“It does not make sense to have a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when MySejahtera login data is available to the authorities and a hotspot detection system has been finally developed by the Malaysian authorities,” he said. – May 7, 2021.