Health DG: Govt Must Not Allow ‘Balik Kampung’ Rush When Uni Students Return Home During MCO

Yesterday, it was announced by Defence Minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, that the government is considering allowing university students who have been staying in their dormitories on campus throughout the MCO to return home.

While this sparked excitement amongst many, Health DG, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah cautioned that the government must not allow the usual ‘balik kampung’ rush to occur as some 100,000 students will be released from their campuses, reports the Star.

Dr Noor Hisham’s discretion is warranted given previous occurrences of people rushing to return to their hometowns, “We should not repeat the same mistake in the past when there was a rush of people returning to their hometowns.”

Nonetheless, the Health Director-General assured that, “the ministry and the National Security Council are planning a strategy on this,” to ensure the safe transition of students from campuses to their homes.

As there have not been any Covid-19 clusters identified at any universities in Malaysia, the Health ministry will be able to start screenings before they send students back home.

“Many of the students have been holed up at their universities for the past four weeks. There’s no cluster detected among the students so far, and we will be able to screen them before they are sent home”, said the Health DG.

While this is good news for uni students, we must all remain cautious and avoid repeating mistakes made in the past if we’re going to successfully break the chain of infection.