Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced Sunday that the country will start easing some COVID-19 restrictions for businesses from today amid evidence that rising vaccination rates are helping counter a growing number of daily cases.
As rumors circle that he is set to imminently resign as Prime Minister after losing party support, Muhyiddin revealed via his facebook page that 11 types of economic activities will be allowed to resume operations. They are car washes, electronic stores, stores selling home goods and kitchen equipment, furniture stores, stores selling sporting equipment, car accessories stores, car distribution and sales centres, wet markets and farmers markets, clothing and fashion stores, jewellery stores, and barbers and hair salons.
Activities in the manufacturing, construction, mining and quarrying sectors will also be allowed to resume in some areas.
There is no such movement at Genting Malaysia’s Resorts World Genting, however, which has remained closed ever since suspending all casino and resort operations on 1 June, the same day Muhyiddin implemented the nationwide lockdown.
The Prime Minister said Sunday that Malaysia’s national immunisation programme was starting to take hold, with the hospital admission rate showing signs of decline in areas where more than 40% of the population has been vaccinated. This is despite daily case numbers moving above 20,000 over the past week.
The decision to ease restrictions has been criticised in some quarters given the scale of the pandemic, however Muhyiddin said, “The government hopes that the guidelines announced today will offer some emotional and mental relief to the people and will help to gradually improve the situation of those who are in the affected economic sectors.”
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