(Bloomberg) -- Malaysia is stepping up reminders for people to wear masks and maintain physical distancing as its number of new coronavirus cases climbed in recent days.
The country found 16 new cases on Wednesday, the fourth straight day that it had double-digit additions, after weeks of mostly fewer than 10 new cases detected each day. The health ministry had previously expected to see zero cases as early as the middle of July.
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“Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure,” Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah said on Twitter, while calling for Malaysians to avoid crowded spaces and reminding them that the use of face masks can reduce the spread of infections by 60%.
The government's caution follows a resurgence of the pandemic in places including Hong Kong and Australia's state of Victoria, which saw record number of new cases on Wednesday after earlier success in curbing infections.
Malaysia is requiring all visitors to the country to undergo quarantine at appointed centers, instead of at home, starting on Friday, after a photo of a person flouting home quarantine rules spread across social media. It's also considering making face masks mandatory.
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