M’sians Returning Under PCA From S’pore No Longer Allowed To Serve Quarantine At Home

When the Singapore and Malaysia government reached an agreement on border travel, many people cheered.

This means that Malaysians who want to come into Singapore and work are able to do so now under the Periodic Commuting Arrangement (PCA), even though rent is high.

This also means that Malaysians who are stranded in Singapore are?finally?able to travel back and see their family.

Unfortunately, this next announcement by the Malaysian government is nothing to cheer about.

M’sians Returning Under PCA From S’pore No Longer Allowed To Serve Quarantine At Home

On 6 Sep 2020, Malaysia’s Health Minister Adham Baba announced that Malaysians returning to the country under the Periodic Commuting Arrangement (PCA) will no longer be able to serve their quarantine at home.

Instead, they’ll have to serve their quarantine at quarantine centres.

But that’s not all.

Those who served their 14-day quarantine at quarantine centres in hotels will have to pay for their stay, he added.

So why the sudden change?

M’sian Under PCA Tested Positive For Covid-19

Turns out, a 35-year-old man who had travelled back into Malaysia on 29 Aug 2020 had tested positive for the coronavirus on 2 Sep 2020.

The man has since been isolated and treated, authorities say.

He had returned to Malaysia under the PCA scheme, which allows workers to cross over to the other country to work for a period of time (3 months) before returning home for a break.

The PCA is only applicable for land travel.

Since 17 Aug, more than 3,000 people have entered Malaysia from Singapore.

815 of them under the Reciprocal Green Lane (RGL) arrangement and 2,647 under the PCA.

He is the first Covid-19 case to be detected and there is no case reported under the RGL scheme.

Still In Discussion For Third & Fourth Phase

When asked about the third and fourth phase of border reopening between Singapore and Malaysia, the Malaysian health minister says they’re still in discussions with Singapore, including the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for daily commutes.

Previously, it was mentioned that the third phase would deal with the people who commute daily across the border for school or work, and the fourth is every Singaporean’s wet dream: leisure travel.

Malaysia has shown its willingness to take all measures to stamp out Covid-19 within the country, from going into lockdown all the way until the end of the year

To banning travellers from countries with more than 150,000 Covid-19 confirmed cases, including the UK and the US.

Hopefully, we can keep out Covid-19 numbers down so that when the time comes, we can still go over to JB for some cheap food and shopping.

After all, they missed us just as much as we’ve missed them.