The Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM) said it was troubled by the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Exemption) Order 2021, which exempted ministers returning from overseas from the mandatory 10-day quarantine.

AMM reminded the government that all standard operating procedures must be grounded in science.

“Quarantine for inbound travellers is set at 10 days. This is based on research which shows that the risk of transmission is extremely low (less than 1%) after 10 days, with monitoring and testing in place.”

With Covid-19’s incubation period potentially being as long as 14 days, AMM said three days was too short to detect symptoms.

AMM also said the effectiveness of planned “travel bubbles” with other countries had yet to be determined with increasingly rapid transmissions worldwide.

It urged the government to avoid opening borders to “bubble” delegations and risk bringing in new variants that could further burden the healthcare system.

“There is insufficient data on the mutations to develop robust protocols for safe travel.

“We understand there is an urgency to restart the economy but this can only be done by bringing the pandemic under control.”