Plans are being finalised ahead of the opening of certain sectors of the economy especially involving small and medium enterprises (SMEs) but the sectors involved in the first phase would probably be those with proven low or even zero infection records.

As part of the reopening move, vaccinations in the Klang Valley are likely to be ramped up to meet the targets to enable such flexibility but the main criteria for reopening, especially SMEs, needed to be decided based on the risk of Covid-19 infection in the respective sectors.

Since sector-based risk analysis alone might produce inconsistent results, Malaysia’s Minister of Finance stated that it needed to be assessed based on robust, exact science and data, the two most important prerequisites.

But government sources cautioned that enhanced standard operating procedures would be part of the reopening and liberalisation of the economy and that the reopening is expected to be carried out in stages.

In a statement, the Ministry of Finance stated that daily symptomatic hospital admission rate (based on each state’s population) would be the new indicator to determine whether a state would change phases (ranging from one to four) under the National Recovery Plan.

The criterion for symptomatic cases is based on daily hospital admission number of patients in Categories Three (with pneumonia), Four (needs supplemental oxygen) and Five (critical condition with multiple complications).

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE