The country’s main medical association has spoken against closing international borders as a way to stop the spread of Covid-19 after a high number of cases involving the Omicron virus variant were discovered among returning Muslim pilgrims.
Malaysian Medical Association president Dr Koh Kar Chai said only immunisation would bring long-term benefits against the Omicron variant, which had shown that it could spread easily, and help end the pandemic.
The government had recently announced that umrah trips would be suspended from Jan 8 following the discovery of a high number of Covid-19 Omicron variant cases among umrah returnees.
This led to calls on social media for the government to ban Malaysian tourists from going for holidays overseas to reduce the risk of them bringing the Omicron variant back to the country.
Koh said the temporary suspension of umrah trips was introduced because
umrah returnees did not follow SOPs while in quarantine.
“All travellers will need to adhere strictly to the mandates issued by the authorities to prevent the import of Omicron cases. In fact, following SOPs is the only proven way to prevent the virus from spreading easily,” he said.
“We will just have to adapt to a different way of life, at least till we have other means of keeping Omicron at bay.”
He also called on the government to conduct research not only on the vaccines but also possible therapeutic drugs that could assist in the management of Covid cases.
Gopeng MP Dr Lee Boon Chye suggested that the health ministry increase the number of hospital beds, create more isolation centres for patients with Omircron infections, and speed up the booster vaccination programme.
The government should also speed up the approval of antiviral drugs Paxlovid and Molnupiravir which had been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, he said.
He urged the health ministry to increase its manpower and other resources.
“The ability of the government to handle crises is poor. In times of crisis, we need to relocate resources. We can’t do things as usual,” said Lee, who served as deputy health minister in the Pakatan Harapan government.
“We have been fighting this pandemic for two years. Yet, there is no increase in the number of healthcare workers.”
Daily express
