MoH denies report citing health minister saying current MCO may extend 14 more days

KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — The Health Ministry has denied a news report earlier today which had cited Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba as purportedly saying the full movement control order (MCO) nationwide may be extended for another 14 days, saying that this was “fake”.

The ministry instead said Dr Adham did not make such a statement.

“This news is not true and not accurate,” the ministry said in a Facebook post tonight, referring to the report by a news portal.

“When contacted, the health minister said the statement that he had made is that, ‘The action now is effective. We have to continue to break the chain of infection and the public has to continue to be in solidarity’,” the ministry said in Bahasa Malaysia.

“It was not mentioned that the MCO will be extended. Any decision to extend or not, have yet to be decided,” the ministry added in the brief clarification post.

In the same Facebook post, the ministry attached a screenshot of the news report this afternoon, with the report carrying the title “PKP penuh mungkin sambung 14 hari lagi, kata menteri” (Full MCO may extend 14 more days, says minister) and a photo of Adham along with a line reporting the minister as purportedly saying that the alleged possible extension was important to ensure the number of daily Covid-19 cases fall under 4,000 per day.

Separately, news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT) had on its website published a statement to clarify changes to its news report in order to reflect what Dr Adham had actually said.

“Referring to the report titled ‘PKP penuh mungkin sambung 14 hari lagi, kata menteri’ that was published by FMT today, there was an error in the reporting of the statement of Health Minister Dr Adham Baba,” the portal said.

FMT said the earlier news report had stated the Health Ministry as being of the view that the government should continue the full MCO nationwide to curb the spread of Covid-19 in light of the still high rate of daily cases.

“However, the minister’s actual sentence stated that the full MCO 3.0 nationwide is very much needed to continue to curb the spread of Covid-19 cases.

“We have already published the report that reflected what Dr Adham said.

“Inconveniences and misunderstanding that arose following the error in that report is regretted,” the portal concluded, while also providing the link to the report which has since been amended.