People’s Voice founder Lim Tean took to Facebook on Feb 9 to discuss Malaysia’s consideration on how it will regulate the entry of Singaporeans. The 11.07 am post also featured a picture of the front page of a Feb 9 issue of Sin Chew Daily (a leading Chinese language newspaper in Malaysia).
The headline in the article sent to Mr Lim by a friend was of some concern to Singaporeans.
“It appears that Malaysia is considering restricting access to Singaporeans because of the nCOV crisis,” Mr. Lim said in his post. He also mentioned that along with Malaysia, other countries like India and Britain are now also speculative of people who have had a travel history involving Singapore.
According to a recent article by South China Morning Post, travellers are now not only avoiding China, but also other Asian countries like Japan and Singapore. With Singapore’s increasing list of confirmed 2019-nCoV patients and the recent change of alert level from yellow to orange given that community transmission has been taking place, people who have travelled to Singapore are now being watched.
“We are now the No.1 country outside of China with the most number of confirmed cases,” Mr. Lim said in his post. He then took a political turn as he called out the People’s Action Party, criticising its politicians for not taking more effective measures to address this problem. “[T]he PAP continues to allow mass events like the Air Show to carry on, won’t close schools and non-essential Government services, and won’t order work from home,” he said. “All the PAP leaders tell us that life must go on. Their incompetence is staggering and is damaging Singapore’s international reputation!”
Netizens however have had mixed responses. Some people either explicitly or sarcastically expressed their frustration with Malaysia for making such a call. Others, however, expressed their understanding of why Malaysia would consider doing such a thing. A few also chimed in, criticising the PAP.
