The government has now agreed to implement the National Recovery Plan (PPN) on state-level as opposed to the existing arrangement which involved the whole country. The decision was announced earlier today by Senior Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob together with Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.
In other words, each state in Malaysia is now able to move on to the next phase of PPN if they meet the threshold for all three indicators as stipulated by the plan, which includes the amount of daily COVID-19 cases, ICU beds utilisation rate, and the percentage of fully vaccinated individuals in the population.
However, the decision is still in the hands of the National Security Council (MKN) who will go over the data related to these indicators on a weekly basis. For starters, five states including Perlis, Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang have been given the green light to begin Phase 2 of PPN starting on Monday, 5 July 2021.
Pecahan kes baharu #COVID19, 3 Julai 2021. pic.twitter.com/glvg4o4NKQ
— KKMalaysia🇲🇾 (@KKMPutrajaya) July 3, 2021
Under this particular phase, inter-district and interstate travel are still being prohibited with exceptions given to emergency cases for long-distance couples and special cases with permission from the police. School teachers and exam-year students are also exempted from this restriction as well.
Farmer’s market (Pasar Tani) and morning markets are allowed operation from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM but sales are limited to vegetables, fruits, grocery, processed chicken, meat, and seafood. Weekly markets, night markets, and tamu markets are still not allowed to be opened.
While the SOP for religious activities are being determined by the religious authorities of each state, those who reside in Phase 2 states are also allowed to engage in all individual-oriented sports and recreational activities that don’t involve physical contact. Naturally, they still need to maintain social distancing of between 2 to 3 meters during these activities.
Selected economic and distribution sectors are allowed to be operational during Phase 2 of PPN including books & stationery stores, computer & telecommunication stores, electrical stores, and car wash as well as barbers although their service is restricted to just basic haircuts.
At the same time, private companies that have been categorised as essential services are also allowed to increase their staff capacities to 80%. While the exact PPN Phase 2’s SOP for these five states is not published yet on MKN’s website, however, you can check out the general rollout plan for PPN right here [pdf].
(Source: MKN / Telegram [pdf].)
