Pages

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The 'Yes-No-Yes-No' of Face-masks in Covid-ed Malaysia


MM Online - Senior minister Ismail Sabri confirms no directive on making face masks mandatory in public:



KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — There is no such rule that makes it mandatory for the public to wear face masks, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said earlier today.

The defence minister said any supermarkets that imposes such rules to their customers take their own initiatives, and not under the movement control order (MCO) enforced by the government to stop the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak.



Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has again clarified today that one should only wear a face mask if they show symptoms or deals with patients in the healthcare sector, and not obligatory in public for the rest.

Responding to persisting confusion over conflicting statements and guidelines over the need for mask wearing in public including by security authorities, Dr Noor Hisham explained that social distancing is more than enough in general.

Basically from the World Health Organisation’s [advisory], you only need to wear mask when you show symptoms, dealing with patients or requirement of working in a hospital environment.
“Generally social distancing is more than enough and it is not necessary to wear a mask but some of us overdo it for example... you want to wear it despite the advisory given,” he told a press conference at the Health Ministry here.

It's not that public members want or love to wear the uncomfortable masks, and also contrary to the LowYat2 Minister, it's not supermarkets which impose the nebulous rule.

Let's visit Malaysiakini's columnist Commander (rtd) S Thayaparan's article ‘They steal so much that they can’t give us free masks’ in which he related his accompaniment of a matey to the Post Office to pay some bills. He wrote (extracts):


When we arrived at the post office, we were told that we could only go in if we had mask. Since neither of us had mask, we could not go in. My friend went ballistic. Speaking in his Terengganu dialect he said that he and his wife had finished the face masks they had. Since they were not hoarding because they wanted other people to have access to face masks, he now did not have any.

I diffused the situation, and these two seniors went to every pharmacy and even clinics around the area looking for face masks. Everywhere, it was out of stock. Here we are supposed to be fighting a war and there were many citizens who did not have access to face masks. What were we supposed to do?

We went back to the post office and my friend started shouting at the personnel outside who refused to let us in. He bellowed, “They steal so much money and they cannot even give us free face masks?”

Just when I thought the situation was going to get worse, a young Chinese kid with blonde hair, came and gave us a couple of face masks. When we wanted to pay him, he merely shook his head and walked back to his motorcycle. Apparently, members of my family had the same experience and were lucky enough to have the same outcome - where a good Malaysian came to their rescue.


Now, the Post Office is a government-linked GLC which I believe reports to the Minister of Communications and Multi-Media, who today is Saifuddin Abdullah (once one of my two favourite UMNO men but no longer as he has become a sinister member of the Dökkálfar Dwarfs).


Tell me, Menteri LowYat2 or Menteri Dökkálfar, why must customers for the Post Office wear masks before they would be allowed into the Post Office, that is, if LowYat2 has had his policy on the wearing of face mask correct?





And today (24 Mar 2020) we read MM Online:

DBKL cancels order for mandatory face masks in supermarkets, restaurants; now says only ‘encouraged’


People wearing face masks are pictured outside Pavilion Kuala Lumpur February 10, 2020

Picture by Firdaus Latif
 

KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 ― City Hall (DBKL) today cancelled an order from two days ago that made it compulsory for face masks to be used by everyone including customers in supermarkets and restaurants here.

The KL mayor instead said today that the practice of wearing face masks was now “encouraged” in such premises.

Confusion arose over the matter after health authorities said the masks were not essential for non-frontline health workers
.

2 comments:

  1. i watch how a mainland utuber sapu 120k mask during his jan/feb trip in msia. now lets all the prc lover go beg their mother country for mask.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes-No-Yes-No....sounds like a U-Turn government already.

    Ha ha ha. Serves them right, apatah nak jadi gomen

    pasal pakai/tak pakai topeng muka pun pusing pusing buat u-turn.

    ReplyDelete