THE total lockdown in the country will not end as long as the government allows the manufacturing sector to flout the movement-control order (MCO) standard operating procedure (SOP), said Mohamed Khaled Nordin.

“The main source of infections is not from the ordinary people who break SOP as the daily infections from the community is at a minimum,” said the Umno vice-president in a statement today.

“But the data shows that it is the factories and industrial sector that is contributing the most number of cases. They, however, are the golden boys and have been given many exemptions from the SOP and are allowed to operate.”  

He said while it is expected for the government to extend MCO 3.0, which was supposed to end tomorrow, Putrajaya does not seem to have any alternative plans.

“Until when will we be under half-baked lockdowns?” he asked.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin this morning said MCO 3.0 will not end tomorrow.

He said it will continue until the daily Covid-19 cases drop to under 4,000, Bernama reported today.

He said the government will announce more comprehensive assistance to all groups of society tomorrow or on Tuesday. The current total lockdown began on June 1 and was supposed to last until June 14, but has now been extended twice.

“Now, they say the movement-control order (MCO) is about to end. I want to say that from now on, we don’t call it MCO, but we say we are in a particular phase and now, we are in phase one of the recovery plan until July, maybe middle of the month or so,” he told reporters after visiting the vaccination centre at the Sunway Pyramid Convention today.

“It is wrong to say June 28 is the end of the MCO. 

“I want to say we are still in the first phase of the national recovery plan, and this will continue until the threshold value of below 4,000 cases is reached, cases in the intensive care units have dropped from the critical level and vaccinations have increased.”

Khalid said restricting the people’s movement while allowing factories to operate is akin to applying medicine to the wrong spot.

“This is like applying medicine to the places that are not hurting while leaving open wounds untreated,” he said.

He said the government should stop “studying” and distribute cash to help the affected parties immediately.

“The government should also start managing the states and areas with different infection rates differently. Locking down the whole country is an easy fix that punishes all and sundry unfairly,” he said.

“And thirdly, the government should monitor the factories that are contributing the most number of infections. These factors should be dealt with directly and not by locking down the whole country.”  

Despite almost a month of total lockdown, Malaysia registered 5,586 new Covid-19 infections today, bringing the total to 734,038. – June 27, 2021.