Malaysia's health minister warns of a spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations as interstate travel begins

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

Malaysia warned of an increase in hospitalizations on Thursday (October 21), despite the fact that the overall Covid-19 situation was improving despite the lifting of travel restrictions across the country.

Since the interstate travel ban was lifted on Oct 11, enabling vaccinated citizens unfettered movement across the nation, admissions in the Klang Valley, the country's largest urban centre, have been on the rise, according to Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
According to him, the east Malaysian state of Sarawak has also seen an increase in admissions.

 

"The conclusion today is that we at MOH (Ministry of Health) are looking at some leading indicators and it is showing a trend of admissions, which is concerning," Mr Khairy said at a press conference on Thursday (October 21), adding that his ministry is looking into the issue further to ensure that serious Covid-19 cases in hospitals are reduced.

 

On Thursday, Mr Khairy stated that Malaysia would begin administering booster shots to those who had Sinovac vaccines more than three months ago, with priority provided based on risk assessment.

 

Using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the boosters would be heterologous.
These would be in addition to the continuous booster doses given to high-risk people who have been completely vaccinated for more than six months.

Malaysia's total Covid-19 cases have decreased by 17.9% in the last week, and the incidence rate per 100,000 persons has decreased by 20.9 percent.

 

Last week, deaths decreased by 15.3%, making it five weeks in a row that cases have decreased.

The country's positive rate has also been declining, with the average dropping from more than 13% during the height of infections in August to 4.28 percent on Thursday, showing that the pandemic has been brought under relative control, according to WHO criteria.

 

From a peak of almost 260,000 patients in August to 83,223 active Covid-19 patients on Wednesday, the number of active cases had dropped dramatically.

On Thursday, Malaysia recorded 6,210 cases, a modest uptick after three days of just over 5,000 cases.
So far, the country has reported 28,138 deaths.

 

Malaysia's interstate borders were reopened for the first time since January earlier this month, boosting the economy and domestic tourism.
The government's decision to treat Covid-19 as endemic, which means living with the virus while controlling the strain on the healthcare system, resulted in the easing.

However, practically all social activities in the country are confined to only those who have been vaccinated.
The country is also immunising its adolescent population, with 94.2 percent of the adult population and 71.2 percent of the entire population having been fully vaccinated.

 

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