Kuala Lumpur: After the Philippines and Indonesia were struggling to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, Malaysia has now become the new hotspot in Southeast Asia for the coronavirus as the country faced a sharp uptick in Covid-19 cases with total reported new cases hit a highest daily rise of 691 last Tuesday.
The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has stepped up its response plan to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among its players, as a total of 127 Malaysian national players at the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) will be subject to movement control in effect immediately until Oct 25th.
Those players will continue to practice as usual, but they can only travel to and from ABM and Juara Stadium in Bukit Kiara.
In addition to those 127 players, joint training sessions with Malaysia’s professional players were also put on hold. Daren Liew and Soong Joo Ven who were supposed to perform daily training with men’s singles players at BAM would have to wait until Oct 25th before they could go back to the BAM training facilities.
BAM coaching director Wong Choong Hann said that BAM players were not allowed to leave ABM except for important matters or technical issues related to badminton.
“If our players have an appointment with a doctor at ISN (National Sports Institute) they are allowed to go. We need to take these preventive measures to avoid being infected with Covid-19,” said Wong.
The Secretary-General of BAM Kenny Goh also urged players to be mindful of the movement restrictions.
“If players wanted to buy food outside, I recommend they use the food delivery app,” said Goh.
“They can go out if they have important things, but eating outside ABM is not recommended. This is because the Covid-19 case has been increasing lately,” added Goh.
Malaysia’s men’s singles head coach Hendrawan also said that the movement of players will be monitored from time to time.
“Players only need to concentrate on training as usual. They also need to remember to wash their hands regularly,” said Hendrawan.
