Alhamdulilah and thank you, to all our frontline workers and those behind the scenes who have played pivotal roles in flattening the curve.
My deepest gratitude to everyone in the Ministry of Health, working as a team towards a common goal to control the spread of Covid-19 in our beloved nation.
We have been successful thus far in averting a national disaster as seen currently in many countries globally. But we are not out of the woods yet, as next week will witness us fighting in a new battlefield with new strategies in place.
We can only win this war if all of us, all Malaysians, collectively come together as part of our social responsibility to embrace the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines set by the government.
We must have social discipline and social compliance to the SOPs — embrace social distancing, take all the precautionary measures and maintain good personal hygiene.
Come this weekend many of you will be travelling back to your kampung. However, you must take this time to plan and do what is necessary to comply with the respective SOP and abide by the new norms.
We must ensure everyone adhere to safe distancing, especially in crowded and confined spaces.
You may need to address the ventilation of spaces to make it more safe with regular sanitisation of common areas such as pantries or prayer rooms (surau), and only allow a limited number of people to congregate in a space at any one time to ensure safe social distancing.
All of the above sounded familiar to all of us in Malaysia? Yes, except now more than ever, we need each and every one of us to play their role to keep our “Keluarga Malaysia” safe from COVID-19.
The MOH’s guiding principles are clear and the onus is now on the people to implement them. Each individuals are self-empowered. This is our social responsibility and we need social discipline and social compliance to embrace and practice the SOPs.
We must adapt to these new norms. The world will not be the same anymore. We must all learn that every individual’s action has a ripple effect on how we manage Covid-19 in our community. We have to adapt, adjust and accommodate the new norms in our lives.
Let us help each other to make sure our loved ones especially those who are vulnerable are safe. Let us keep Malaysia safe. Let’s emerge victorious at the end of this war against an invisible enemy.
Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah
Director-General of Health