KUCHING, May 5 — Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah today said that the state government will ensure activities which are no longer prohibited under the conditional movement control order (CMCO) will be engaged in a manner that will not jeopardise public health.
He said the state Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), at its meeting today, had decided on three strategies before allowing all sectors to operate.
“The first stage is to refine the standard operating procedures (SOPs) under CMCO to suit the local situation in the various economic activities in Sarawak,” he said in his media briefing today.
Uggah said the state government will first familiarise all the stakeholders on the SOPs and guidelines.
“This is very important as they must be aware of what they should do, especially in the current situation where the practice of social distancing and personal hygiene are very important.
He said the second stage would be the operations aspect of the SOPs.
“Once the operations have started, we will make sure that we have sufficient people to monitor, supervise and enforce.
“We will study the types of operations that we allow in the green zones and what are the operations that can be controlled in the yellow and red areas,” he said, pointing out that over 70 per cent of Sarawak is classified as green zones with no positive Covid-19 cases in the last few weeks.
Uggah, who is also SDMC chairman, said there will be two sets of SOPs in the state, one is for the green zones and another for the yellow and red zones.
“The most important is our strategy to cut off the chain of the virus to make sure the health of the people is always protected.
“You can see in some countries where citizens are very disciplined and understand the importance of social distancing and personal hygiene, they succeeded in fighting Covid-19,” he said.
Asked if the state government was consulted before the CMCO was gazetted and then announced, Uggah said there was a meeting of the national security council which Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg attended.
“That was part of the consultation, but the SOPs were distributed later. That was why we responded later as we needed to study the SOPs,” he said.
