Health ministry to recommend reopening borders when booster uptake improves

The health ministry will only make recommendations to the government on the reopening of the country’s borders and relaxing the requirements for the quarantine period when the booster vaccination rate among the adult population and the Covid-19 vaccination for children improves.

Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said although the booster vaccination rate among adults had surpassed 50% as of today, he wanted to see a higher number before making any recommendations.

“The health ministry is still having internal discussions on what threshold values we feel comfortable with in terms of vaccination for children and booster vaccination for adults. We will be making recommendations to the quartet ministerial meeting.

“I want to see a bit more (booster vaccination rate). I call on everyone who has yet to get their booster shot, to go get it, and to all parents to enrol their children in the immunisation programme,” he said at a press conference after launching the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Kids at Hospital Tunku Azizah Hospital today.

He said 30% of senior citizens have yet to receive their booster shots, while experts have yet to recommend booster shots for adolescents.

Khairy also advised the public not to panic over the recent increase in the daily tally of Covid-19 cases as the numbers were expected to rise following the spread of the Omicron variant.

“What we need to do now is to look into the severity of the cases, not the number of cases. If we simply look at the number, of course we will be worried, but there is no need to panic.

“The health ministry is constantly monitoring this important data and what we are seeing now is a lot more short stays in the hospital. So far, we are seeing a rise in cases which is not related to severity,” he said.

He said the ministry is also monitoring the development of the new Omicron subvariant as reported by the World Health Organization on Tuesday.

Khairy also said there are 180 active education clusters with most of the cases reported between Jan 1 and Feb 5 at boarding schools.

However, he said no severe cases were reported.