KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — “Malaysia is amazing!”

This was one of about a thousand responses from Japanese netizens to a tweet praising Malaysia’s guidelines to its people in the wake of the Covid-19 coronavirus disease outbreak in China.

These netizens hailed the Malaysian government action in putting out an advice through the Ministry of Human Resources (MoHR) on Feb 6 to check the spread of Covid-19 in Malaysia.

It all started when a Twitter account holder, with the handle @kurakuranet, retweeted the MoHR guidelines. It is believed that @kurakuranet resides in Malaysia.

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One netizen tweeted in Japanese something to this effect: “Malaysia’s policy protects the infected ... which is better as a nation.”

The MoHR guidelines state that employers are to instruct employees to be examined immediately, at the expense of the employer, by a registered medical practitioner or by a medical officer as stipulated by Section 60F of the Employment Act 1955.

They also state that employers are to provide paid sick leave or hospitalisation entitlement during the quarantine period to employees receiving quarantine orders from a registered medical practitioner, regardless of the employee being quarantined at home or at the hospital.

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The guidelines encourage employers to provide extra remuneration to employees with an order for quarantine that exceeds sick leave or hospitalisation.

“That's wonderful,” tweeted a netizen, and said it was hoped that the Japanese government would emulate Malaysia.

“This is how a country that is serious about preventing the spread of infection should be,” said another.

The MoHR guidelines also state that employers are to provide full pay to employees under a quarantine order from registered medical practitioners in countries with COVID-19 cases where they are on official duty or due to instructions from their employers.

MoHR advises employers against preventing any employee from attending work if no quarantine order were issued by any registered medical practitioner.

However, employers are allowed to order any unwell employee from coming to work by providing paid sick leave to the employee, the guideline says.

MoHR also advises the employers to not instruct employees, in any way, to utilise their annual leave entitlement or take unpaid leave during the quarantine period.

“An example of risk management,” commented one Twitter account holder, joining the chorus praising the Malaysian government action.

 “This is to show Malaysia knows (how) to value its national resources. In the end, ‘people’ are the most important resources of a country.”

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, last December, the disease has spread to 27 countries.

Up to 75,725 cases have been reported with 2,128 deaths, mainly in China.

A total of 16,108 people have recovered from the disease. — Bernama