Frontliners make another plea for SOP compliance and volunteers at Covid-19 assessment centre - The Star Online
PETALING JAYA: As frontliners fight the yet-unabated Covid-19 pandemic, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has once again issued an impassioned plea to the public to stay home and comply with all standard operating procedure.
The Health director-general said the battle to overcome the crisis is everyone’s fight, not just that of the healthcare workers and other frontliners.
“The awareness and the social responsibility can start with your own movement control order by staying at home and complying fully with the SOP.
“InshaAllah, we will then be able to break the chain of infection, ” he tweeted.
Dhiyaaa shared her views on the Covid-19 situation as a medical student volunteer on the ground, on social media.
“I almost cried behind my PPE (personal protective equipment) today because I was dead tired and the crowd today was easily 1,500 in total.
“Parents with sick babies, elderly on oxygen tanks. Covid-19 is scary. So stop complaining about the MCO and stay home, ” she tweeted on Monday (May 10).
On Monday evening, the government announced that the entire country would be placed under the MCO from May 12 to June 7 to curb to rising Covid-19 cases.
Dhiyaaa thanked those praying for the frontliners, noting that she and the others were doing their best to help the nation.
“But get this, they’re humans too. They can get tired too. Hundreds on a daily basis. Hundreds and that’s when the numbers were low.
“So, imagine the numbers rising to thousands daily. Where are we going to put these patients? You can curse all you want about the system but we are all crumbling together. It’s not a competition of who has it worst!” she said.
Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Universiti Malaya’s Infectious Diseases professor, has put out a call on Twitter for volunteers at the Covid-19 assessment centre in Stadium Melawati, Shah Alam.
Also making a call for volunteers, be they medical or general, to step forward to help out at the centre was the former national adviser for infectious diseases and former Health deputy director-general Datuk Dr Christopher Lee.
“With the increase in cases, we need to provide support for the staff there. This pandemic affects us all, we’ve to face it together. Please spread this message and volunteer however you can. Thank you, ” he wrote.
In a separate tweet, Lee also noted that the implementation of the MCO is just a “short-term fix to prevent the collapse of the health system”.
“It lowers transmission for the time being; buying us time to boost our public health policies and infrastructure so that we’ll be better prepared to face the expected increase of cases or clusters post-MCO, ” he said, adding that there should be post-MCO plans as well.