Cars travel on a street in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 4, 2020. Malaysia started to restart most of its economic activities on Monday, as new COVID-19 cases in the country dropped after a short spike during the weekend. Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said at a press briefing that 55 new cases were reported, among which seven were imported cases with the remainder being local transmissions, pushing the total cases in the country to 6,353. (Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua)
KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia started to restart most of its economic activities on Monday, as new COVID-19 cases in the country dropped after a short spike during the weekend.
Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said at a press briefing that 55 new cases were reported, among which seven were imported cases with the remainder being local transmissions, pushing the total cases in the country to 6,353.
Another 71 cases have been released, bringing the total of those cured and discharged to 4,484 cases or 70.6 percent of all cases. Of the 1,764 active cases still receiving treatment, 28 are currently being held in intensive care and 13 of those are in need of assisted breathing.
No new deaths have been reported, leaving the total fatalities at 105.
Noor Hisham added that two mobile applications had been launched to help authorities with contact tracing and to help members of the public conduct self-assessments on their risk of getting infected.
Malaysia on Monday lifted some restrictions on the movement control order to allow most sectors to reopen in a bid to restart the economy.
In a large shopping at downtown Kuala Lumpur, some of the shops are open with staff taking temperatures of the customers before allowing them to enter. Many people remained cautious on the easing of the restrictions as the country recorded a daily increase of cases on both Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Some state governments have announced that they are not fully following the federal government's decision by either continuing the restrictions or imposing their own conditions.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government has made it mandatory for foreign workers across the country to undergo COVID-19 screening following a spike in foreign workers testing positive in Kuala Lumpur.
He added that the spike in COVID-19 cases over the past two days had been traced to foreign workers at a construction site in the capital which has since been closed. Enditem
