In mooting this, the former prime minister said Malaysia should have a backup plan for such a situation, citing Chile as an example.

He said Covid-19-related deaths in the South American country were high, despite its vaccination rate surpassing that of Malaysia.

Close to 60% of Chile’s population have been fully vaccinated, compared to Malaysia’s 11.4%, he said, adding that the Chilean cases only saw a downward trend following a lockdown imposed after 45% of its population had been vaccinated.

“When the country drafts policies, there is a need for a backup plan should the policies not succeed. We need to learn from what is happening in other countries,” he said in a Facebook post.

Najib said several nations were already providing booster shots to their citizens to increase the efficacy of the vaccine.

He said Malaysia should not be among the last to implement the two initiatives he mentioned.

If cases continue to rise even after the country moves into the third phase of the national recovery plan, he said, there was a need for a very strict one or two-week lockdown.

“We need to learn from Chile and our mistakes.”

Najib’s comments come in the wake of the country reporting 10,710 Covid-19 cases and a record high 153 deaths in the past 24 hours.

The number of fatalities has since breached the 7,000 mark.