The unbecoming behaviour of parents insisting on bringing their your children to shopping malls and public places since the MCO was lifted and replace with CMCO, could face legal action.

Ministry of Health is mulling in drafting a new law that will prohibit parents and guardians who insist on bringing their young children to public places without valid reasons. Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said he will discuss this with the National Security Council tomorrow on the implementation of enforcement against those stubborn parents.

Currently, MOH and MKN are still using soft approach by advising parents before taking any action against them.

“We will discuss (with MKN) how we can enforce (action) against parents who insist on taking their young children to public places and hospitals without having prior appointment,” he said at a COVID-19 daily media conference here, today.

Ever since CMCO, the doctor has noticed an increase in outing by parents with children as young as 6 months old being brought out into malls and restaurants. Regarded as the vulnerable segment, young children and senior citizen are encouraged to stay at home to keep themselves safe from the deadly coronavirus. There are no laws currently available to enforce on parents.

He also stressed that said the level of compliance of the standard operating procedure (SOP) still needs to be improved despite the number of new positive cases of COVID-19 infection during the two weeks of CMCO has been maintained at double digits.

There is no discussion on exit strategy as the SOP-compliance among the people was very important before such an implementation can even be considered.