Apart from wearing face masks which are now a ‘compulsory accessory’ when out and about in public, other steps including filling in personal information such as name and contact number or scanning QR codes before entering premises are now being widely practiced. Bernama Photo
KUCHING: Members of the public should not take providing accurate details at business premises lightly, said State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
He said that the purpose for registering was so that authorities had a record of who has been there so that contact tracing could be done efficiently.
“The strategy is to get hold of that person as quickly as possible so that those who have been infected but were not detected early can be brought to the hospital or removed from the community so that the infection is not spread.
“I must emphasise that the name and record are very important in contact tracing because one of the most important strategies in fighting Covid-19 is detecting those who have had close contact with a victim. If one person is positive, the infection can spread quickly,” Uggah said in a press conference held after giving the daily update on Covid-19.
He was responding to a question on whether registering with a name that was not registered in a person’s MyKad, or IC, was an offence or not such as the case in Miri where two men were compounded for failing to comply with the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) standard operating procedures.
“If you notice for some of the cases in our clusters, some are few while others are a lot. This is because of the inability to do contact tracing quickly. So that’s why, please write your name properly.
“Now we have apps like CovidTrace, Qmunity and MySejahtera. So if you don’t want to write your name, you scan the QR codes with those apps so you don’t have to write your name because your details are there. Because writing your name can also pose a bit of a risk, that’s why we also advise if you don’t use the app, better to bring your own pen so you don’t risk spreading the disease.
“So please, this is a very serious matter and it is not pleasant either for the police to take action against you,” Uggah said.
Meanwhile, touching on the Miri case, Sarawak Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief SAC Denis Leong said that the purposing of registering your name at a public place or business premise was so that the individual could be contacted.
“When you register your name and phone contact there, it is for contact tracing. When you are able to be contacted, it serves that purpose.
“In the Miri case, I am not going to comment too much but when their names were called, those two chaps did not respond. So were they using a name that they don’t even recognise themselves? That could be the reason they were compounded.
“So my personal opinion is the purpose for registering your name is so you can be contacted. If you can be contacted, then it serves its purpose. Of course, if you give your name as per the MyKad, it would be best,” Leong said.
The two men were compounded on July 29 after a surveillance team had gone to an eatery in Miri to check on standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance.
The police did a roll call of the names recorded in the record book and went around the tables where upon reaching one table, they asked the two men if they had written his name and they said they did but the police said that they did not respond when the names that they wrote down were called.
Further investigation revealed that they had not write their names as per their MyKad but used a different name.