KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 3 ― The Covid-19 outbreak in Sabah was caused by the number of undocumented migrants entering the country unauthorised, said Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
He said he was so informed during the special National Security Council (MKN) special meeting that he chaired this morning.
“As such the government has decided that all illegal immigrants who have been arrested be screened and placed in the temporary detention centres (PTS) that are available.
“At the moment the PTS in Sabah were beyond capacity,” Muhyiddin said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
“The government is also opening up new PTS to place these illegal immigrants before we deport them and at the same time we have added more Ministry of Health (MOH) staff to aid in the screening process.”
Malaysia’s alarming increase of cases have mostly been concentrated in Sabah and Kedah.
Muhyiddin said most of those found positive were from the detention centres involving the detainees and prison staff.
He assured Malaysians that the situation was still under control due to the hard work of the various agencies and MOH.
“For your information, most of the cases that are happening are among the prisoners in prison, individuals in the targeted enhanced movement control order (TEMCO) and from the various clusters that have been identified.
“All these places are being monitored at all times and close contact tracing activities are being done actively to ensure these positive cases are detected and separated.
“Our security personnel will also guard all our borders tightly to ensure no more illegal entry into the country especially in Sabah. Assets will be mobilised to stop any efforts to breach our nation's borders,” added Muhyiddin.
Apart from that, Muhyiddin assured Malaysians that the country was at its highest level of readiness to combat the pandemic.
He said there are 40 hospitals, 34 quarantine and low risk treatment centres to treat those who are Covid-19 positive and 5,674 beds of which the current usage is only at 24 per cent.
“Besides that, our health facilities have 437 beds in the internal care unit and 1,505 ventilators.
“I want to urge all Malaysian’s to be calm in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. I believe our frontliners especially the MOH and the security teams have the capacity to handle the situation well.
“Let us all continue to live in new norms and adhere to the new SOPs in place,” he added.
Malaysia hit its highest number of cases yesterday at 287 after months of double or single digit infections.
