Haircuts can wait, says Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR (April 11): While Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah agrees that the government should be planning on how to slowly return life to normal for Malaysians after the movement control order (MCO), he feels it should postpone allowing barbershops and hair salons to operate, Malaysiakini reported today.

“Of course we agree in terms of planning but in terms of implementation, there should be a postponement of at least two weeks.

“At least we can see in a week whether we can control the Covid-19 disease among the urban community,” he told reporters after a press conference at the Health Ministry in Putrajaya today.

Malaysiakini quoted him saying the ministry will review the data in a week and see how the situation is like then.

He warned that things will not return to normal in one day and it will require planning and perhaps implementation in stages.

“We have to see for us to start (going back to normal) in stages. We cannot return (to normal) immediately. For example, the moment Phase 3 is over, we go back to normal.

“The implementation will have to be done in stages. For example, if we cannot reopen our schools straightaway, maybe we can do it in stages,” Noor Hisham said.

According to Malaysiakini, he said there definitely needs to be planning from the ministries on how to implement policies and rulings to eventually return Malaysians back to their normal way of living.

“We have discussed this in terms of implementation. We encourage planning because otherwise if you do not plan, suddenly at the end of the MCO, you do not know what to do, everything will not go back to normal.

“So the planning starts now, the implementation maybe in a week, two weeks, or maybe after the MCO,” he said.

During the press conference, Noor Hisham said they had found some success in lowering the number of Covid-19 cases through the government’s actions in Phase 1 and 2 of the MCO.

Hence, in Phase 3, he said it is more important than ever that those controls implemented in the first two phases are tightened to successfully break the transmission of the disease.

“The concept is simple. Stay at home and reduce infections,” he said.

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