COVID-19: No 'balik kampung,' stay where you are - Dr Adeeba

KUALA LUMPUR: "Please don't go ‘balik kampung’, stay where you are."

Selangor COVID-19 Task Force member, Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, has this message to Malaysians who are facing a two-week movement control order to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus starting tomorrow.

"What is important here is that they do not go ‘balik kampung’ or people from the kampungs too do not come to the city.

"Stay where you are. Reduce travel," she said on the ‘Consider This’ program on Astro AWANI 501 last night.

Dr Adeeba, who is also dean of the faculty of medicine, University Malaya, was responding to the possibility that many Malaysians were considering returning to their kampungs during the current school break due to the anxiety caused by the spread of COVID-19.

"The whole idea of this Restricted Movement Order is to restrict movement... to minimise human contact that can spread the virus. Social distancing is the fancy term for it," she added in a tweet on Tuesday.

No, the answer is No. Stay put wherever you are. The whole idea of this Restricted Movement Order is to...... restrict movement... to minimise human contact that can spread the virus. Social distancing is the fancy term for it. https://t.co/J33oSBGMeD

— Adeeba Kamarulzaman (@ProfAdeeba) March 16, 2020

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had last night declared that the entire country would be on a movement control order starting from tomorrow to deal with the rise in COVID -19 cases.

He said the decision was made under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 and the Police Act 1967.

The prohibition of movement and mass assembly nationwide, he added, would include all religious, sports, social and cultural activities.