KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — As Covid-19 cases rise alarmingly, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah asked Malaysians not to let their guard down as the fight to contain the virus still rages on.

This follows after several states and areas, especially within the Klang Valley, have been put under a new movement control order (MCO) due to rising Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks.

At a press conference today, Dr Noor Hisham said it is always difficult to balance between lives and livelihoods, but repeatedly stressed the need for people to comply with standard operating procedures (SOPs) and adapt to the new norms.

“It is very challenging to strike the right balance because health is important, but the economy is equally important.

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“So now if the cases increase, the economy will have to compromise in terms of activities,” he said.

“We need to look at new ways of doing things, we need to adapt to the new environment. It shows that we are not adapting to the new environment, but the virus is adapting to us faster and infecting us faster.

“It is still not too late, we have not failed but we have not won, we have not failed, we continued to fight for the last 16 months, so we hope we can curb the infection in time to come.

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“So we need co-operation from everyone. If we can just comply with the SOPs. Compliance is number 1. Our concern is when we succeed, this will breed complacency, complacency will breed failure,” he added.

Dr Noor Hisham explained that people need to adapt to new norms such as working from home, mask compliance and other practises that have been touted as the means to curb the infection.

When asked whether Malaysia is entering a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, Dr Noor Hisham said that isn’t the case as at the moment the data indicates more sporadic cases within the community compared to Covid-19 clusters.