KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 — Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah urged all employers to help enforce Covid-19 SOPs with more fervour as cases at workplaces continue to rise.
In a statement today, he said cases at workplaces in the Klang Valley have risen so much with 119 clusters emerging from the workplace environment.
As such, he hoped employers could play a bigger role by ensuring that SOPs are followed strictly and provide the necessary facilities to ensure the disease does not spread among them.
“Lately, there have been a lot of cases from the Klang Valley, Selangor in particular, where cases are coming from a workplace cluster.
“From the 119 clusters from a place of work, 36 have ended while 83 more are still active. A total of 77,201 individuals have been tested, with 12,079 testing positive for Covid-19,” said Dr Noor Hisham.
He highlighted five workplace clusters beginning with the Teratai cluster, Damanlela construction site, Cergas, Hentian and Kaya clusters as having the most cases.
Despite the government imposing a conditional movement control order (CMCO) and targeted enhanced movement control order (TEMCO) in certain clusters, the success of these strategies lies in compliance, Dr Noor Hisham said.
He added that employers who hire a lot of labour-intensive workforce need to play a bigger role in making sure their employees are safe.
“During this third wave of cases we are learning to balance our lives with our livelihood. That’s why the success of the TEMCO and CMCO needs a lot of cooperation from the employers.
“Among the steps they need to take seriously are making sure temperature checks are done before entering the workplace, providing space for washing hands and hand sanitisers must be provided, constant sanitising of common areas, social distancing of at least one metre and work and dining spaces, avoiding confined spaces and avoid having too many workers in one place at the same time,” he added.
Of the workplace clusters, 4,398 cases involved Malaysians while 7,681 were foreigners.
The Teratai cluster has thus far had 4,036 positive cases, Damanlela (1,539), Cergas (1,337), Hentian (1,101) and Kaya (900).
Selangor had the highest number of cases today at 1,623 out of a record high 2,188 total cases today.
