KUCHING, May 19 — Express and regional bus services in Sarawak will only be allowed to resume operations from June 2 with the operators required to make the necessary preparations from now to ensure compliance with the standard operating procedure (SOP) under the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

State Transport Minister Datuk Lee Kim Shin today said that the SOP includes sanitising their buses, swab test for their drivers, reorganising seating arrangements to meet social distancing purposes and provision of other apparatus such as handheld thermometer, hand sanitizer and face masks.

"These steps are taken to protect everyone especially the bus drivers and passengers in the effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the state,” he said in a statement.

He said the decision was made by the State Disaster Management Committee yesterday.

At present, he said police approval needs to be obtained before interdistrict travelling could be performed and this measure was meant to minimise physical contacts between people from different districts in order to break the chain of infection of the disease.  

"In this connection, the state government has also made a ruling to minimise the number of people congregating in the coming festivals, which are the Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Gawai Dayak,” he added. — Bernama