Two Malaysians and two China nationals suspected of having the novel coronavirus have been placed in isolation, while waiting for test results, Malaysia’s Ministry of Health said yesterday, a day after it confirmed its first four cases of the virus carried by tourists from Wuhan who entered Johor from Singapore.
The confirmed cases have caused widespread anger in Malaysia and have quickly become political, with former premier Najib Razak posting on his Facebook page, attacking Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has so far refused to stop the inflow of Chinese tourists.
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An online petition launched on Saturday to ban Chinese visitors from entering Malaysia garnered nearly 300,000 signatures as of 8pm yesterday.
Many Malaysians were also angered over news that a two-year-old toddler from China, suspected of having the coronavirus, evaded quarantine when the parents and the child fled Hospital Sultanah Aminah in Johor Baru.
The trio were detained early yesterday morning at Johor airport after a doctor filed a police report saying the child had influenza-like symptoms but the parents refused further tests.
The first three of the four confirmed cases were Chinese citizens who entered Malaysia via Johor Baru. They are the wife, 65, and two grandsons of a 66-year-old man from Wuhan who is currently being treated in Singapore for the same virus. The children are aged 11 and two. The fourth case is a 40-year-old man who is also from Wuhan, who was part of a tour group that travelled by bus to Johor from Singapore on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, there have been no confirmed cases of the virus yet.
At least nine people have been isolated or examined for possibly having the virus, in Jakarta, Bali, Riau Islands and North Sulawesi, but all have tested negative. “Nobody has been confirmed positive so far,” the Indonesian Health Ministry’s director-general for disease control and prevention Anung Sugihantono told The Straits Times yesterday.
In Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail yesterday chaired an emergency meeting of the National Disaster Management Agency.
She said screening and border controls would be tightened. “Everything is under control. We do not want there to be panic,” she told a news conference. China has suspended all tours abroad by its citizens, but that did not stop Najib from attacking the Malaysian government. His post attracted over 2,000 comments, many of which criticised Tun Dr Mahathir.
Dr Mahathir said yesterday the situation was “serious”, but added that it had not yet reached a “critical stage” to bar Chinese tourists.
