By Zareef Muzammil
SHAH ALAM, Jan 12 — The Selangor government is looking at making wearing face masks and maintaining physical distance mandatory again in the event of a spike in Covid-19 cases in the state.
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said the state also plans to make using the SELangkah (Step In, Safely) mobile app mandatory to facilitate close contact tracing.
“We are now monitoring the case from week to week. If there is a large spread, maybe we will take further action (by making wearing face masks mandatory) including physical distancing and close contact tracing.
“I think, if MySejahtera is not ready for close contact tracing, SELangkah is. We will monitor from the FTTIS (find, test, track, isolate and support) system to see if the cases spike,” he said when met after launching the Selangor Preschool Center for Special Children (Anis) in Section 7, here today.
Also present was state executive councillor for public health Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud.
Besides that, Amirudin also encouraged the public to take their third booster dose to increase immunisation, thus controlling epidemic infections.
Taking the example of infections in China at the moment, he revealed that the increase in cases there was due to the low rate of taking booster shots, based on some data and findings.
“So now, I want to encourage more people to take booster doses. We have to intensify booster injections, especially for the first and second booster shots. The minimum now is to actually have three booster doses,” he added.
Meanwhile, Dr Siti Mariah said that the booster injection rate in this country is two per cent less compared to the 95 per cent recorded for the first dose and 50 per cent for the second dose.
“We are not fully protected (from Covid-19). So, we encourage the public to please take a booster dose, especially after six months from the second dose,” she said.
