KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Police nabbed a total of 203 people yesterday for failing to comply with the health standard operating procedures to curb the spread of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced today.

The senior minister said 44 were remanded and the remaining 159 were issued compounds.

"The offences committed were holding activities in pubs or nightclubs (five), failure to register customers (44), premises operating without licence and suspected of carrying out gambling activities (37), not wearing face masks (26) and activities involving many people, making social distancing difficult (66) and premises operating beyond the stipulated hours (25),” the defence minister who is also in charge of security during the current recovery movement control order (RMCO) said in a statement today.

Just yesterday, Ismail announced 184 people were found to have breached the SOP, with 49 remanded for further investigations and 135 let off with fines. 

He said the high number showed that many Malaysians were disobeying regulations intended to protect their health and wellbeing.

Malaysia, which imposed a lockdown in mid-March when the coronavirus started spreading globally, eased up on restrictions in early June.

The RMCO started on June 10 and will is supposed to last until August 31.