KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 — Malaysia is currently reviewing travel bans to and from the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, which have reported confirmed or suspected community transmission of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced today that the government will daily update Malaysia’s travel ban list of countries that have reported Omicron transmission or are considered high risk following the spread of the new variant of concern.
Malaysia is temporarily denying entry to foreign tourists coming directly from or in transit from the listed countries, as well as foreigners who have visited these countries within the 14 days prior to their arrival in Malaysia. The government will also ban Malaysian citizens from travelling to countries on the travel ban list.
Malaysian citizens and long-term pass holders (Permanent Resident, Spouse Visa, MM2H and Resident Pass) arriving from the listed countries, regardless of their Covid-19 vaccination status, will undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine at designated sites; prior to departure RT-PCR test 72 hours, upon arrival at Malaysia airport and on day 10 of quarantine.
A risk assessment will be carried out on the 14th day of quarantine and if symptoms of Covid-19 persist by then, the quarantine will be extended.
As of December 1, eight countries have been added to Malaysia’s travel ban list: South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
To date, Omicron infections have been reported in at least 20 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and northern Canada.
Carey also announced that Malaysia will suspend plans to establish vaccinated travel lanes for quarantine-free travel with countries on the travel ban list. For the Malaysia-Singapore Vaccination Travel Link (VTL), both air and land travellers arriving in Malaysia are required to self-test for Covid-19 on the third and seventh days after arrival and report their test results on MySejahtera.
“Once we get more [Omicron] In the cases of the countries you mentioned, after doing a risk assessment, we will decide whether to include these countries on the list.
“But I can tell you that those countries you mentioned are now under scrutiny,” Carey told reporters at a media briefing today, when code blue Ask if the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany will be added to the travel ban list.
Scotland has reported six cases of Omicron, some with no known travel history. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reportedly said this suggested the variant could be spreading in the community in Scotland.
Australia reported its first community case of Omicron yesterday after an infected traveller from southern Africa visited several shopping centres in Sydney while contagious in the community for two days.
CBS News It was reported yesterday that Dutch health authorities said they had detected Omicron in samples of Covid-19 cases from November 19 to 23, and then positive cases of Omicron in passengers who arrived in Amsterdam from South Africa on November 26 last year.
Belgian and German authorities also reportedly said that tests confirmed Omicron was in those countries before South Africa raised an alert for the variant on November 24 last year.
Khairy said the Ministry of Health (MOH) will provide a list of Omicron-infected countries and countries designated as “high risk”, which will be updated daily and distributed to ministries and relevant federal agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Arts and Culture, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Immigration.
“Now, there may be questions about why [travel restrictions] Applies to these listed countries when Omicron infection is detected globally. The Ministry of Health’s assessment took into account whether the presence of Omicron came from imported cases or community cases.
“Secondly, our risk assessment at the Ministry of Health will look at whether these countries experience a spike in infection within a short period of time, and the third consideration is their vaccination rates. If they have low vaccination rates and widespread community transmission, the Ministry of Health A risk assessment will be carried out to place the country in [high-risk] list.
“But if it is an imported case, where the spread of Omicron is relatively small and the country has a high vaccination rate, the Ministry of Health will exclude the country from the high-risk list after an assessment. This assessment will be conducted by the Ministry of Health’s Disease Control Unit. Do it every day,” Khairy said.
Carey said Malaysia’s “temporary” travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine orders for travelers from southern African countries were taken as a “precautionary” measure and “in no way a punishment” for these countries to warn the world of a new variant of the coronavirus.
“One of the things I want to stress is that although we have travel restrictions on people coming in from southern Africa, it’s a temporary measure that we’ll lift once we feel safe.
“This is by no means what we are doing to punish these countries, but more preventative as far as Malaysia is concerned. We congratulate and thank the South African scientists who detected Omicron, the first to detect Omicron, sequence it and collaborate with the world Share – I think this speaks volumes about the professional response in South Africa, the scientific response to this and the subsequent now that we’ve found that other countries actually detected Omicron earlier, without informing the world.
“So it’s safe to say that this is hopefully temporary and we can review it when we have better information,” Carey said.
Malaysian public health experts have opposed lockdowns and border closures, recommending the government turn to enhanced genomic surveillance and Covid-19 booster vaccinations in response to Omicron.
The International AIDS Society has similarly condemned the “discriminatory” travel ban, calling for an international code of conduct to guide countries’ responses to new variants and emerging messages of Covid-19.
