He said the expansion of CMCO areas was not a sign that the Klang Valley CMCO has failed. “I don’t see it as a failure,” he said at his daily media briefing.

“If we look at the start of the third wave, the infection rate (R0) was at 2.2 but in two weeks we have brought it down from 1.5 to 1.0. So we maintain that the CMCO has succeeded,” he said.

Noor Hisham added that the recent spike in cases was the result of screenings at prisons and temporary detention centre clusters, particularly in Tawau and Sandakan in Sabah and Seberang Perai, Penang.

He said the health ministry was considering tighter border controls, as many of the new cases also came from undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries.

A month-long partial lockdown under a CMCO was ordered for Kedah, Penang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor and Terengganu from Nov 9 to Dec 6 because of the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the states.

The health ministry reported 1,168 new Covid-19 cases today, with the number of infections reaching four digits for the fifth day in a row.

States with high number of new cases are: Negeri Sembilan (68 cases),Perak (37), Penang (18), Kedah (15), Johor (5), Terengganu (3) and two in Melaka.

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