Another lockdown not an option

Amid growing concerns over spread of Covid-19 Omicron variant, Khairy says country cannot afford to follow China’s containment strategy

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia cannot afford, in economic and welfare terms, to implement a lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said yesterday.

He said on the other hand, the government's strategy to contain the pandemic was to implement mitigation strategies.

“There is no doubt that China’s approach (to enforce a lockdown) has been effective.

“However, their containment and ‘Zero Covid’ strategy also means a total lockdown (is enforced) when there are only three positive cases,” Khairy said in a Twi er post.

In his tweet, the minister also a ached a screenshot of a news report headlined ‘Yuzhou: Second Chinese city forced into Covid lockdown’.

Khairy said Malaysia, a er having successfully achieved high vaccination rates, had managed its Covid-19 cases effectively, besides constantly reminding the people to continue to adhere to standard operating procedures to ensure the fatality rate, use of intensive care units and hospital admissions can be reduced.

At the same time, he also expressed his full support for Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah to continue his duties as Health director-general.

His response was following Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing’s statement on Facebook yesterday questioning Dr Noor Hisham’s background and expertise as a surgeon and not in the field of public health.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham in a statement said new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia fell to 2,888 yesterday compared with 3,251 cases on Saturday.

The Health DG said this

There is no doubt that China’s approach (to enforce a lockdown) has been effective. However, their containment and ‘Zero Covid’ strategy also means a total lockdown

(is enforced) when there are only three positive cases.

Khairy Jamaluddin

development brought the country’s cumulative cases to 2,786,219, while 2,714 recoveries (2,714,614 cumulative cases) were recorded.

"Of the 2,888 daily cases reported today, 36 cases or 1.2 per cent are in categories three, four and five, while another 2,852 cases (98.8 per cent) are in categories one and two,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said a total of 248 cases required treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) while 117 cases needed respiratory assistance and one new cluster was also detected yesterday.

Meanwhile, the country’s infectivity rate (Rt) is currently at 0.97 with Labuan recording the highest value at 1.12 followed by Sabah at 1.06.

Dr Noor Hisham said as of 3pm yesterday, the Health Ministry detected three more positive cases among flood victims taking the total cases to 469.

He said the ministry also detected eight cases of Acute Respiratory Tract Infection (ARI) and a case of skin disease among the victims.