For more than 120,000 members of the police force, 2020 will probably go down as one that was unusual and peculiar, and not typical of their regular duties. Wearing many hats and having taken on multiple roles, including maintaining peace in the nation and fighting crime, they were sent to the frontlines to counter "criminals" of a microscopic kind.
Police had started a task to contain the COVID-19 pandemic just a month into the year, such as tracing several Chinese nationals who dodged quarantine in Johor Bahru after being held on suspicion of carrying the virus during the early stages of the outbreak. A lockdown was imposed on March 18, marking the beginning of the movement control order (MCO) under laws of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 and the Police Act 1967.
The arduous task of manning thousands of checkpoints and sniffing out dodgers of the lockdown required a large number of police personnel on the ground.
This led to desk-bound police personnel being roped in and reassigned to assist in enforcing the MCO.
Just as it was a tough task for medical frontliners, police personnel were also pushed to the edge, putting in long hours daily. Fortunately, the military stepped in and deployed several thousand soldiers to assist the police within days after the MCO was implemented.
Read more on The Sun’s article attached.
HELP BREAK THE COVID-19 CHAIN
