KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — The government will not block Malaysians in Singapore from returning but will place all returnees in official quarantine centres, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today.

Ismail, who is also the defence minister, was asked if such inflows would be blocked as Singapore was now experiencing a spike in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infections.

"Our policy today, we do not prevent our citizens from returning back to our country. As we know, many of our people who were stranded in India, we brought them back too, but the condition is that any of our citizens who return from overseas, we will place them under mandatory quarantine, including those from Singapore, as of today.

"As of today, we see that not many of our citizens enter into the Johor Causeway to Johor Baru, from Singapore.

"Despite daily numbers show the entrance count from Singapore to be about 1,900 till 2,000 daily, but 90 per cent of the entry are from those involved in logistics,” he said adding that the transporters usually carried fresh produce.

Ismail said that only 10 per cent of Malaysians in Singapore were returning daily, numbering about 200 people each day.

He said returnees have their body temperatures recorded and quarantined in the designated centres in Johor.

"So as of today, we do not see huge entry numbers from Singapore into Malaysia via Johor Baru, but we are prepared for it, in case there are bigger numbers,” he added.

Ismail said that the Malaysian and Singaporean governments had also discussed, and negotiated to have Malaysians working in Singapore return in stages.