KUCHING, Jan 11: The Health Ministry does not foresee any spike in Covid-19 cases during the upcoming Chinese New Year.
According to Bernama, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said since the reopening of Malaysia’s borders on April 1, 2022, there has been no major spike in cases reported despite major festive celebrations and events including Hari Raya Aidifitri, Christmas and the 15th General Election.
He was quoted saying at an engagement session with the media in Putrajaya yesterday that during the more than eight-month period, the Health Ministry was able to bring the number of Covid-19 cases under control.
Covid-19 case numbers in Malaysia, according to Dr Noor Hisham were showing a downward trend with less than 500 new cases reported in last two weeks, compared to between 3,000 to 4,000 several months ago.
To prevent new surges, he said the Health Ministry would monitor foreign visitors and the development of new cases and variants in other countries.
“We are now closely monitoring new variants and every time there is a mutation in Omicron subvariants. Although cases are expected to increase with each variant—BA1, BA2, BA4 and BA5—it did not happen.
“This gives us confidence that the existing vaccines are able to provide protection for each individual against the Omicron variant,” he said, adding that so far, no new variant of Covid-19 has been detected in the country, including the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant or ‘Kraken’ which is now the most dominant strain in the US. Bernama quoted Dr Noor Hisham. — DayakDaily
