KOTA ISKANDAR (Johor) • The Johor state government said it hopes to reopen the border with Singapore within the next few days.
New Menteri Besar Hasni Mohammad said this would be done with more stringent health checks on both sides of the border.
Malaysia - which shares its borders with Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia - shut its borders for two weeks from yesterday in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
More than 400,000 people cross the land checkpoints in Woodlands and Tuas each day, many of them Malaysians working or studying in Singapore.
"We are coming up with a mitigation plan during this Covid-19 outbreak," said Datuk Hasni.
"Among the categories exempted are those with work passes by Malaysia or Singapore, students studying in Singapore, those with specialised skills, businessmen, those involved in logistics and others that would be announced soon."
Mr Hasni said this at a news conference after the weekly state executive councillors meeting held in Kota Iskandar, Johor's administrative centre, yesterday.
The chief minister said a special committee headed by him, the state secretary and state security council was to discuss the issue yesterday. They would then discuss it with their Singapore counterparts before forwarding the matter to the federal government.
Malaysia yesterday shut its side of the Causeway and Second Link, allowing through only lorries and those with special permission to travel to Singapore.
The empty crossing at the Causeway yesterday was in sharp contrast to Tuesday, when vehicles were stuck for hours trying to enter Singapore, and thousands of people walked across.
Malaysia's decision to shut its borders followed Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's order on a nationwide restriction of movement for 14 days to March 31.
The order came after a sudden weekend spike in Malaysia's coronavirus case count.
And on Tuesday, the country recorded its first deaths from the crisis - that of a 60-year-old pastor in Sarawak and a 34-year-old man in Johor.
THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
