Bars entry from countries with more than 150,000 cases

[reader]

From Channel News Asia

PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian government will impose an entry ban on citizens from countries with more than 150,000 COVID-19 cases starting from Sep 7, said Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Thursday (Sep 3).

Countries on the list include the United States, Brazil, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Bangladesh, he said.

On Tuesday, Malaysia announced that long-term pass holders who are citizens of India, Indonesia and the Philippines will be barred from entering the country effective Sep 7. 

The decision was made after considering the surge in the number of COVID-19 cases within the three countries, said Mr Ismail Sabri.

“The barring would be applicable to permanent residents, holders of Malaysia My Second Home passes, expatriates of all categories, those with resident passes, spouse visas and students who are citizens of the respective countries," he said.

[Guest]

1  Surely it only makes sense to have an entry ban on countris with more than 150,000 ACTIVE cases ?       Including historical cases would be irrelevant.

The UK has approximately 26,000 active cases at present (source Covid Zoe).     Other sources might have a different figure, but all will be below 150,000.       Perhaps we just fail as the government is not AFAIK directly publishing a figure of the number of current active cases, although of course it's easy enough to get the calculator out and infer that we are a long way below 150,000 from the data they do publish.  

 

2  I would have thought this limit should be adjusted for population.     If they had 150,000 cases in Samoa, that would be roughly 75% of the population.    150,000 in China would be a somewhat smaller percentage. 

[spoon]

57 minutes ago, z909 said:

1  Surely it only makes sense to have an entry ban on countris with more than 150,000 ACTIVE cases ?       Including historical cases would be irrelevant.

The UK has approximately 26,000 active cases at present (source Covid Zoe).     Other sources might have a different figure, but all will be below 150,000.       Perhaps we just fail as the government is not AFAIK directly publishing a figure of the number of current active cases, although of course it's easy enough to get the calculator out and infer that we are a long way below 150,000 from the data they do publish.  

 

2  I would have thought this limit should be adjusted for population.     If they had 150,000 cases in Samoa, that would be roughly 75% of the population.    150,000 in China would be a somewhat smaller percentage. 

Agreed with all what u said. This ban is really another political moves to gain support from the people, to show that gov is doing something. Eventhough we have daily cases here, but it is still within below 20 daily, and often local transmissions are in single digit. We had a bump in new cases recently due to the gov decision to allow home quarantine instead of at state quarantine center or hotel, so i take it that this move is to compensate that mistake. And we had few local lockdown too and for the first time since the outbreak, compulsory mask wearing in crowded places, public transport and anywhere social distancing is impossible. Either way, our border is closed to all tourists until end of year anyway. 

Im sad at this new restriction for a purely selfish reason lol. My favorite MBs here are from indonesia lol

[vinapu]

13 hours ago, spoon said:

 This ban is really another political moves to gain support from the people, to show that gov is doing something.

you got that  right but if that is what people want , so be it.

The same with Thais panicking about first case in 100 days and volunteering themselves to choke economy.

But  at least toilet paper buying panic , worldwide phenomena 6 months ago seems to be forgotten.

[spoon]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

you got that  right but if that is what people want , so be it.

The same with Thais panicking about first case in 100 days and volunteering themselves to choke economy.

But  at least toilet paper buying panic , worldwide phenomena 6 months ago seems to be forgotten.

Toilet paper buying is a non issue here as we use bidet/water lol 

[spoon]

To add to this and maybe why the gov decided to start the complete block of entry from high risk nation. Yesterday we had 65 new cases, and today 100 new cases. Two clusters are mainly responsible for this new spike. One originated from the jail where it is believed started from a detainee (illegals  from philiphine) tested positive and now has infected most of the detainees and officers. 

Second one is a new cluster that happened in a state where a lot of new clusters found recently, all believed to have indirect link to a person coming back from india (with work permit) and break the 14 days home quarantine (the mistake the gov made i mentioned in earlier post mainly due to lack of enforcement for the home quarantine). He actually owned a restaurant and have been working/serving customers.