No need to close Parliament, Khairy says on Covid cases among staff

There is no need to close the Parliament sitting despite reports of Covid-19 cases among the Parliament staff as the health ministry has the structure and experience to deal with the outbreak, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

He said these include the frequency of Covid-19 screening tests and the isolation of those found to be infected with the virus.

“We also have the strategy and vaccination (programme). With all these strategies, we hope that when cases spread, we do not have to carry out drastic measures such as movement control orders, lockdowns, closure of Parliament and so on.

“At our present stage, we already have the experience and measures such as closing Parliament and so on as the last resort… in carrying out frequent testing in Parliament (now), we will conduct two days of testing (in a week) and therefore there is no need to stop Parliament proceedings,” he said in a media conference in Putrajaya on the development of Covid-19.

He was speaking to reporters on whether there was a need to suspend Parliament following the detection of 84 Covid-19 cases during the current sitting since Oct 27.

Yesterday, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 25 Covid-19 cases were detected through random screening on Nov 29, most probably of the Delta variant.

The current sitting of the Dewan Rakyat is from Oct 27 to Dec 16 while Dewan Negara will run from Dec 8 to 23.