Temperature screening and other new normal practices have become daily habits among visitors upon entering shops in Kota Kinabalu.
KOTA KINABALU: The first day of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) in Sabah on March 5, saw an increase in the footfall traffic for shopping malls.
Crowds are expected in the malls during the weekend while adapting to the new norm.
After going through the Movement Control Order (MCO) 2.0, everyone is accustomed to the new normal life and will always equip themselves with safety precautions, such as wearing face masks, carrying hand sanitizers and antibacterial wipes, check-in by scanning MySejahtera QR Code, and remain physical distancing.
Centre Point Sabah has opened a few entrances for shoppers’ convenience to enter and exit, which includes the parking lot entrances, main entrance (facing Api-Api), side entrance (facing Asia City), City Parade main entrance, City Parade side entrance (facing Warisan Square), and the back entrance (loading bag area).
Each of the entrances will have enforcement personnel to supervise the shoppers wearing a face mask, scan the MySejahtera QR Code, and body temperature check before entering the mall. Those who have a body temperature of 37.5° Celsius and above will not be permitted to enter.
The Mall management has worked together with every shop operator in ensuring the safety by continuing to comply with the SOP guideline and do daily disinfection procedures at their premises.
Other than that, the shop operators encourage their shoppers to wear gloves while inside the shop, limiting the number of shoppers inside their premises and maintaining safe physical distancing.
The mall management also continues to create a safe shopping environment for everyone by allowing only four people inside the lift at one time; the public dining area can only occupy 50% of the seats; cleaning personnel doing disinfection on high-touch areas such as lift buttons, door handles and more.
Besides, other business sectors such as movie theaters, karaoke centers, bowling alleys and beauty centers are now allowed to operate as usual but strict SOPs need to be adhered to by everyone to prevent the spread of the virus.
The general manager of Centre Point Sabah, Megan Liu, stated that after experiencing the first Movement Control Order (MCO) last March 2020, she believes that every business operator is now well-prepared with the current situation.
“When the government announced the non-essential shops are allowed to open, the business operators were already aware and provide their co-operation to the Mall management by preparing several prevention measures in the shop before reopening.
“In addition, the business operators feel confident with the management’s effort as it can be seen that the footfall traffic is slowly increasing and business is expected to sustain the economy,” she said.
Megan emphasized that the decreasing number of cases in Sabah is due to the community’s effort and teamwork to prevent the virus from spreading.
Now that the vaccines have finally arrived in Sabah, it is expected the commercial and economic activities will recover back to normal.
Megan also believes that every business operator is now adapting to the new normal, creating a new lifestyle, and at the same time provide shoppers a safe shopping environment in the mall.
The mall’s CPCares: We Care Food Bank Campaign, which was initiated last November 2020, is currently still ongoing.
The campaign aims to collect donated non-perishable food items such as rice, noodles, salt, sugar, biscuits, milk powder, etc, and distribute to every family that experiences hardship due to the pandemic and natural disasters situation.
The public is encouraged to send their donation items to the donation hub on the ground floor (behind Information Counter), which will open from Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm.
Meanwhile, other popular malls in the city like Imago and Suria Sabah have also begun to attract increasingly more visitors, especially on Friday and Saturday, while the city streets and some popular restaurants are beginning to look like it used to be – crowded.