Malaysia to reopen its borders from April 1
New Zealand is also coming to terms with virus after logging record 24,000 cases
Malaysia will reopen its borders from April 1 and allow entry without quarantine for vaccinated visitors, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob says.
The country would also transition to the endemic phase of Covid-19 from next month, he said in a televised address yesterday.
Borders have been shut since March 2020, while entry of foreign workers has been frozen. Nearly 98 per cent of Malaysian adults are fully vaccinated, while more than half have received booster shots.
Although the country’s daily cases have shot up past the 30,000 mark due to the recent Omicron outbreak, 99 per cent of the infections are mild or asymptomatic.
In New Zealand, back in August the government put the entire nation on lockdown after a single community case of the coronavirus was detected. Yesterday, when new daily cases hit a record of nearly 24,000, officials told hospital workers they could help out in understaffed Covid-19 wards even if they were mildly sick themselves.
It was the latest sign of just how radically New Zealand’s approach to the virus has shifted, moving from elimination to suppression and now to something approaching acceptance.
Hospital virus admissions have been rapidly rising because of the Omicron variant, hitting a record of over 750 yesterday.
In Bali, foreign tourists are being welcomed under rules that no longer require arrivals to quarantine, part of a broader easing of curbs in Indonesia after infections declined. The government said it could lift all quarantine requirements for international visitors on April 1 or earlier if a trial in Bali proved successful.
Japan also wants tourists back. The Japan Business Federation has asked the government to plan the nation’s exit strategy from the pandemic immediately and said it should declare Covid was endemic and move on.
Japan is easing border measures in phases, letting 5,000 people enter daily as of March 1, rising to 7,000 on March 14.