Covid-19: Health Ministry will respond in ‘calibrated, appropriate’ manner, says Khairy

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry will continue to respond to a possible wave of the Covid-19 Omicron variant in a calibrated, appropriate manner, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

In a series of Instagram stories on Tuesday (Jan 4) night, the Health Minister said that his Ministry is committed to stopping the spread of the Omicron variant despite the backlash due to the travel restrictions.

“Even when recent travel restrictions have been attacked, we will continue to try to slow down the impending Omicron wave,” he said.

In the series of Instagram stories, Khairy shared screenshots of two articles from British daily The Guardian, which reported that more than one million people have been infected with Covid-19 on Jan 3 in the US and how India’s capital of New Delhi has imposed a weekend curfew to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.

He also shared an article that said the city of Xi’an in China placed its 1.2 million citizens under a lockdown after three asymptomatic Covid-19 cases were detected there.

“Omicron is wreaking havoc in other countries. Million daily cases in the US. Curfew in Delhi.

Meanwhile, China locks down 1.2 million people because of three asymptomatic cases. Extremes all around. We will continue to respond in a calibrated and proportionate manner,” he said.

On Saturday (Jan 1), Khairy announced that the government had decided to temporarily suspend travel permission to perform umrah starting Jan 8 to curb the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.

The postponement was due to concerns over the spread of the variant due to non-compliance by umrah pilgrims with home-quarantine procedures, resulting in infection among family members.

As of Tuesday (Jan 4), there are a total of 58 new Covid-19 cases confirmed due to the Omicron variant.

The cases were confirmed via whole genome sequencing (WGS) conducted by the Institute for Medical Research (IMR).