KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — States that have been to war such as Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam have a different understanding and social norms than those who have not, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah claimed today.
He said its citizens understand the severity of the situation under crises, and realise that adherence to the new standard operating procedures (SOP) such as the movement control order (MCO) and the new conditional MCO, are crucial.
“In Taiwan, South Korea and even Vietnam now they never had an MCO but they had the CMCO and I heard they were successful with its implementation.
“So when we studied how they were able to make this CMCO a success and not affect the economy, we feel these nations were successful because they have gone through war,” said Dr Noor Hisham today during his daily Covid-19 briefing.
“Their people realise how important it is to adhere to the new SOPs so that they survive the crisis. In that same vein I hope us Malaysian’s can also do the same.”
Taiwan, or the Republic of China, and South Korea have been in cold wars with the People’s Republic of China and North Korea, respectively, while Vietnam went to war with the United States between 1955 and 1975.
Dr Noor Hisham said this in response to a question on whether he is optimistic of single digit infections by next week as the government has slowly started lifting restrictions on the movement control order (MCO) to the new conditional movement control order (MCMO) while allowing several industries to resume operations as usual.
Despite that, other countries that have been to war such as United States and the United Kingdom are still faring poorly in handling Covid-19.
The CMCO was called as the government was losing RM2.5 billion a day from the stagnant economy.
Dr Noor Hisham said that although earlier predictions said they hoped to have single digit infections by this week, if the people have discipline and adhere to the new norms once the CMCO is lifted by May 12, the number of cases will reduce.
