KUALA LUMPUR: Chinese New Year celebrations are only allowed among family members from the same household this year, said Malaysian Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
"Family reunion dinners are allowed at their residences only among family members from the same household," he said in a press briefing on Thursday (Feb 4).
"House visits are not allowed, as are cross-district and interstate activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year," he added.
Mr Ismail Sabri, who is also defence minister, said the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the festival were drawn up after reviewing various aspects and the advice of the health ministry.
All states in Malaysia except Sarawak are currently placed under the movement control order (MCO) until Feb 18 to rein in the spread of COVID-19, as total cases surpassed 230,000.
The minister added that cultural activities and performances such as lion and dragon dances, lantern and chingay parades as well as Chinese opera performances are also prohibited.
Temple prayers are only limited to five members from the temple's management committee.
"The Chinese community is encouraged to perform prayers at home," Mr Ismail Sabri said.
He added that the federal government would let the Sarawak state government decide on its Chinese New Year celebration policy.
At the same briefing, Mr Ismail Sabri also said that three business activities - night markets (pasar malam), hair salons and car wash services - would be allowed to operate from Friday onwards, with strict SOPs.
These would include 1m distancing between each stall, as well as separate entries and exits.
Salons could operate for hair-cutting only, he added. Other beauty procedures are still barred.
YANGON: Internet providers in Myanmar including state-owned telecom MPT were blocking access to Facebook-owned services in the country on Thursday (Feb 4), days after military leaders seized power in a coup.
A letter posted online by the Ministry of Communications and Information overnight said Facebook would be blocked until Feb 7 for the sake of "stability".
Some users in Myanmar reported they were not able to access several Facebook services.
Network monitoring group NetBlocks confirmed state-owned telecom MPT, which says it has 23 million users, had blocked Facebook as well as its Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp services. Norway's Telenor Asa said it had just blocked Facebook to comply with the directive.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone acknowledged the disruption.
"We urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with their families and friends and access important information," he said.
Half of Myanmar's 53 million people use Facebook, which for many is synonymous with the Internet.
"Currently the people who are troubling the country's stability ... are spreading fake news and misinformation and causing misunderstanding among people by using Facebook," the ministry letter said.
Telenor expressed "grave concern" about the directive, which it said had been received by all mobile operators and Internet service providers on Wednesday.
It said in a statement it was directing users to a message saying Facebook websites cannot be reached due to government order.
"While the directive has legal basis in Myanmar law, Telenor does not believe that the request is based on necessity and proportionality, in accordance with international human rights law," it said.
On Tuesday, the military warned against the posting of what it said were rumours on social media that could incite rioting and cause instability.
UN human rights investigators have previously said hate speech on Facebook had played a key role in fomenting violence in Myanmar. The company has said it was too slow to act in preventing misinformation and hate in the country.
This week, Facebook said it was treating the situation in Myanmar as an emergency and taking temporary measures to protect against harm such as removing content that praises or supports the coup, according to a spokeswoman.
YANGON: The US on Wednesday (Feb 3) called on Myanmar's military to free Aung San Suu Kyi, as the ousted leader was charged after being detained in a coup, while calls for civil disobedience opposing the putsch gathered pace.
The Southeast Asian nation was plunged back into direct military rule when soldiers arrested key civilian leaders in a series of dawn raids Monday, ending the army's brief flirtation with democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has not been seen in public since, won a huge landslide with her National League for Democracy (NLD) last November, but the military - whose favoured parties received a drubbing - declared the polls fraudulent.
The unusual charge stemmed from a search of her house following her arrest in which walkie-talkies were discovered, according to a leaked police charging document seen by reporters.
A similarly unorthodox charge under the country's disaster management law against President Win Myint revolved around him allegedly breaching anti-coronavirus measures last year by meeting voters on the campaign trail.
The United States said it was "disturbed" by the charges.
"We call on the military to immediately release them all," US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters of Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders.
With soldiers and armoured cars back on the streets of major cities, the takeover has not been met by any large street protests.
An army personnel carrier patrols the streets in Mandalay, Myanmar on Feb 3, 2021. (Photo: AP)
But signs of public anger and plans to resist have begun to flicker.
Doctors and medical staff at multiple hospitals across the country announced on Wednesday they were donning red ribbons and walking away from all non-emergency work to protest against the coup.
"Our main goal is to accept only the government we elected," Aung San Min, head of a 100-bed hospital in Gangaw district, told AFP.
Some medical teams posted pictures on social media wearing red ribbons - NLD colours - and raising a three-finger salute, a protest gesture used by democracy activists in neighbouring Thailand, while some have chosen to bypass work altogether.
"My protest starts today by not going to the hospital... I have no desire to work under the military dictatorship," said Nor Nor Wint Wah, a doctor in Mandalay.
Activists were announcing their campaigns on a Facebook group called "Civil Disobedience Movement" which by Wednesday afternoon had more than 150,000 followers within 24 hours of its launch.
The clatter of pots and pans, the honking of car horns and the singing of democracy protest songs also rang out across the commercial capital Yangon on Wednesday evening for a second night in a row after calls went out on social media.
Late on Wednesday, the military issued a statement rejecting rumours that 5000 kyat (US$3.70) and 10,000 kyat notes (US$7.40) would be demonetised.
Demonetising of bank notes was a key factor in an 1988 uprising.
MILITARY'S DEADLY LEGACY
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing appointed himself head of a new cabinet stacked with generals, and on Tuesday justified his coup as the "inevitable" result of failure to heed the army's fraud warnings.
The military declared a one-year state of emergency and said it would hold new elections once its allegations of voter irregularities were addressed.
The move stunned Myanmar, a country left impoverished by decades of military misrule before it began moving towards a more democratic government 10 years ago.
But protesting is fraught with risk.
During junta rule, dissent was quashed with thousands of activists - including Aung San Suu Kyi - detained for years on end.
A convoy of army vehicles patrol the streets in Mandalay, Myanmar on Feb 3, 2021. (Photo: AP)
Censorship was pervasive and the military frequently deployed lethal force, most notably during huge protests in 1988 and 2007.
The new government has already issued a warning telling people not to say or post anything that might "encourage riots or an unstable situation".
On Wednesday, the NLD announced the military had committed "unlawful acts" in the coup's aftermath, raiding its party offices across the country and seizing documents and computers.
INTERNATIONAL CENSURE
The army's actions have been met with a growing chorus of international condemnation - although the options are limited for those nations hoping Myanmar's generals might reverse course.
Any impact will be mainly symbolic, as almost all assistance goes to non-government entities and Myanmar's military was already under US sanctions over its brutal campaign against the Rohingya minority.
To be adopted, it requires the support of China, which wields veto power as a permanent Security Council member and is Myanmar's main supporter at the UN.
"China and Russia have asked for more time," said a diplomat requesting anonymity.
Both countries repeatedly shielded Myanmar from censure at the UN over the military's crackdown on the Rohingya, a campaign that UN investigators said amounted to genocide.
On Wednesday a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman called for the international community to "create a sound external environment for Myanmar to properly resolve the differences," according to state-run Xinhua news agency.
With the UN meeting failing to issue a statement, G7 nations produced their own - calling on Myanmar's military to reverse course.
SINGAPORE - A 35-year-old long-term visit pass holder from India is the sole locally transmitted coronavirus case announced on Wednesday (Feb 3), said the Ministry of Health (MOH).
The ministry added that her case may be reclassified as an imported case, as her serology test result is pending.
"Should her serology test come back positive, and epidemiological investigations assess that this is a past infection, we will reclassify this as an imported case," it said.
The patient had travelled to India on Nov 30, said the MOH.
She took a pre-departure test in India on Jan 4 before her flight back to Singapore, and tested negative for Covid-19.
Upon her return, she served a stay-home notice (SHN) at a dedicated facility between Jan 6 and Jan 20.
Her swab done on Jan 17 was negative for the virus.
The MOH said the woman, who is asymptomatic, was detected when she took a Covid-19 pre-departure test on Tuesday ahead of her flight back to India. Her test result came back positive on Wednesday and she was taken to KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
It added that all her identified close contacts, including family members, have been isolated and placed on quarantine. They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine to detect asymptomatic cases.
The cases included one permanent resident and one work pass holder who arrived from India.
There were also 14 work permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom nine were foreign domestic workers.
The remaining imported case was a sea crew member holding a Special Pass who arrived from Indonesia to board a vessel docked here.
They tested positive while serving SHN or in isolation after their arrival in Singapore, said the MOH.
The ministry added that the New Ocean 6 cluster has also been closed, as there have been no more cases linked to it for the past 28 days.
Overall, the number of new cases in the community decreased from five cases in the week before to four cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community increased from one case in the week before to three cases in the past week.
With 19 cases discharged on Wednesday, 59,305 patients have fully recovered from the disease.
A total of 39 patients remain in hospital, with none in intensive care, while 214 are recovering in community facilities.
Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.
LONDON: Britain’s health chief said on Wednesday (Feb 3) that a new study suggesting that a single dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine provides a high level of protection for 12 weeks supports the government’s strategy of delaying the second shot so more people can quickly be protected by the first dose.
Britain's decision has been criticised as risky by other European countries, but Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the study “backs the strategy that we’ve taken and it shows the world that the Oxford vaccine works effectively”.
Hancock's comments came after Oxford University released a study showing the vaccine cut the transmission of the virus by two-thirds and prevented severe disease.
The study has not been peer-reviewed yet and does not address the efficacy of the other vaccine currently in use in the UK, made by Pfizer. Pfizer recommends that its shots be given 21 days apart and has not endorsed the UK government's decision to lengthen the time between doses.
But the Oxford research was greeted with excitement by UK officials under pressure to justify their decision to delay the second dose for up to 12 weeks.
"That reduction in transmission, as well as the fact there is no hospitalisation, the combination of that is very good news. And it categorically supports the strategy we’ve been taking on having a 12-week gap between the doses," Hancock told Sky News.
Britain has Europe's deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 108,000 deaths, and is in its third national lockdown as authorities try to contain a new, more transmissible virus variant first identified in southeast England.
Other variants are also a concern. Public health officials are going door to door, trying to test all adults in eight targeted communities in England in an attempt to stop a new strain first identified in South Africa from spreading further.
So far 105 cases of the variant have been identified in the UK, 11 of them in people with no links to overseas travel. Scientists say there is no evidence the South African variant is more serious than the original virus but it may be more contagious, and there are concerns that current vaccines may be less effective against it.
That is a worry as the UK races vaccinate its own population against the virus. Almost 10 million people have received the first of their two shots, including the bulk of people over 80 and those in nursing homes.
One of the lead researchers on the Oxford vaccine project, Dr Andrew Pollard, said Oxford scientists believe the vaccine will continue to offer protection against new variants of COVID-19, although they are still waiting for data on that.
He said even if the virus adapts, "that doesn’t mean that we won’t still have protection against severe disease".
“If we do need to update the vaccines, then it is actually a relatively straightforward process. It only takes a matter of months, rather than the huge efforts that everyone went through last year to get the very large-scale trials run,” he told the BBC.
