With Chinese New Year less than a month away, it should come as no surprise that many families are already engrossed in the frenzy of preparations for the celebration.
From the traditional bright-red and yellow decorations to bring in prosperity, to festive sweets and soft drinks to greet the guests, most homes will be filled with all the trappings of the festive season by the 1st of February.
Although some consumers appear to be well prepared for the holidays, a video that went viral on the internet yesterday (7th Jan) shows a swarm of men and women frantically gathering around a deck of soft drinks ‘Coca-Cola’ brand in a desperate attempt to get some for their own consumption.
It was believed that the soft drinks were on special promotion on that particular day, which are a popular element during the festive season of Chinese New Year. This is thought to be the significant reason in the incident, which happened in a store in the city of Sitiawan, Perak. The cause of the incident is still being investigated.
With the emergence of the more transmittable Omicron variation in this country, and despite evident demands for social distancing on the SOPs, customers appeared to be caught up in a total chaos as they attempted to fight for the Coca-Cola drink in a wild dash. While the man filming behind the camera chuckles, he describes the scene as being similar to a ‘robbery,’ which is published on the community Facebook page Info Roadblock.
Even worse, as shown in a video recorded by one of the Facebook netizens, Sing Jia, some of the buyers didn’t even wait for the supplies of Coca-Cola soft drinks to be emptied off their pallets, instead choosing to seize them as they were being hauled out of the warehouse by the store staff.
For the sake of comparison, Coca Cola Less Calories soft drinks in a pack of 24 cans was sold for RM44.40, and the product has already been sold out due to popular demand on Shopee. But on that particular day, the Coca-Cola soft drinks were sold only at just RM20.88.
However, according to Harian Metro, the Royal Malaysian Police has issued a RM1,000 charge to the shop for failing to comply with COVID-19 SOPs, in accordance with the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988, as a result of this mad desire for the soft beverages.
Meanwhile, the police have encouraged the public to continue to adhere to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) established by the Malaysian National Security Council (MKN). People who have more knowledge about the occurrence involving the violation of SOPs during the Coca cola mad dash, are encouraged to come forward and supply them with that information. You may reach IPD Manjung by phone at 05-6886222.
As the holiday season approaches, and in order to protect the virus from spreading further, we from Tehtalk would like to urge everyone to continue to follow the standard operating procedures in order to avoid any unexpected breakouts.
