File photo showing a police roadblock for illustration purposes.
KUCHING (Apr 16): Individuals who need to travel between zones will have to obtain police permit prior to their trips from Apr 19, said Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas today.
The State Disaster Management Committee chairman said police will issue inter-zone travel permit only to those involved in the essential services.
“Those included in the essential services are public transportation, those who need to deliver food and essential items and emergency,” he said during the daily update press conference here.
Uggah, who is Deputy Chief Minister, said SDMC will later come up with a clearer definition on essential items.
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“As for the definition of emergency, it has to be discussed with PDRM (Royal Malaysia Police),” he added.
He said SDMC had learnt that a total of 505 Covid-19 positive cases involving eight clusters recorded since January this year were due to inter-zone travels.
As such, SDMC had decided to tighten inter-zone travels, he said.
Uggah said SDMC also decided that only those in the retail and essential food businesses would be allowed to operate until midnight during the current Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) enforced until Apr 26.
He added that the entertainment sector such as cafes and bistros, including karaoke lounges, were allowed to operate until 10pm only.
He called upon the community to make efforts to comply with the standard operating procedures (SOP) set by the authorities to break the chain of Covid-19 infections.
“Do not be complacent but take care of ourselves and Sarawak,” he appealed.