KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 — Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today reassured the public of his ministry’s capabilities in handling the incoming wave of Covid-19 cases brought about by the Omicron variant.
In a series of tweets, Khairy said that he had forewarned the increasing number of cases more than a month ago, and has had his ministry completely ready to deal with the surge of cases.
More than a month ago, I said that we expect Omicron to become dominant here as it has elsewhere, and that when it did, cases would rise. That's why we sped up our booster program.
We are now seeing the predicted quick rise in cases. However, there is no need to panic. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/pOJtbMQUBcAdvertisement— Khairy Jamaluddin 🇲🇾🌺 (@Khairykj) February 1, 2022
“There is strong indication of a decoupling between severe outcomes and cases. Our vaccination programmes — adults, adolescents, and soon children — are working well.
“Hospital capacity utilisation remains under control, and we are prepared to deal with a surge,” he said.
Khairy said that the ministry has learnt how to better manage a Covid-19 wave from the previous one that hit the country between June and September of last year, allowing for shorter quarantine periods, self regulation and keeping the disruption to a minimum.
“With more than 50 per cent of adults (and almost 70 per cent of the elderly) having gotten a booster shot, we have every hope that we can weather the Omicron wave with carefully calibrated and proportionate measures.
“Follow SOPs. #TRIIS. Get boosted. Get your kids vaccinated. We can do this,” he said.
Yesterday, Malaysia’s new daily Covid-19 cases stayed below the 5,000 mark after recording 4,774 infections in the past 24-hour.
This also marked another dip from 4,915 the day before, which ended the country’s three days streak of recording above 5,000 cases in daily Covid-19.
It also brought the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country, since the start of the pandemic, to 2,870,758.
