THE Penang government has prepared two hotels and three training institutes as quarantine centres for international passengers who fly into Penang from today.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said this measure was taken due to the changes in quarantine rules set by the Federal Government.
He said a week ago, the state had received information to degazette all the quarantine centres that it had gazetted at the start of the movement control order (MCO).
“Now, with the U-turn, we’ve to regazette some of the new quarantine centres,” Chow told reporters after launching an exhibition on “The death and life of Hokkien: How an ideology wiped out your mother tongue” at Seh Tek Tong Cheah Kongsi in Armenian Street today.
“At the moment, we are preparing two hotels in Tanjung Bungah and three training institutes as the quarantine centres.
“This will cater to a few hundred people who arrived from overseas.
“We’ll have to look at the numbers; if the numbers keep increasing we will have to get more hotels to take part as quarantine places and also gazette more training institutes and more government institutions to be the quarantine places.
“This is the preparation that Penang is making to receive passengers from overseas. Basically, they are all Malaysians from the various locations.
“Medical tourism is not fully opened yet but I think the Federal Government is still looking at the standard operating procedures which I think they will inform once they have made some decision.”
Chow, who had chaired a Covid-19 Special Committee meeting earlier in the morning, said since the international flights have been allowed to bring back Malaysians and some foreigners with special permission from June 18 until yesterday, a total of 567 people had arrived at the Penang International Airport.
He added that the 567 passengers were mainly from three sources – Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia.
Story by K.H. Ong
Pix and video by Law Suun Ting