Defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the government had given Khairy the mandate to handle the matter as issues surrounding the new variant was developing at a quick rate.

He said there was no time to hold special Cabinet meetings for the relevant ministers to be briefed and then decide on issues related to Omicron.

“Over the next few weeks, as we get more details regarding Omicron, Khairy will make announcements.

“If it involves health, we will leave it to the health minister,” he said at a press conference today.

Khairy had announced today that the first case of Omicron was detected in Malaysia. It involved a South African student who arrived in the country on Nov 19.

He said that the results of the PCR genotyping assay test, which came back on Dec 2, confirmed that it was the Omicron variant.

Meanwhile, asked about the claim of a soldier being bullied in his army camp, Hishammuddin said he had asked his deputy, Ikmal Hisham Abdul Aziz, to personally probe the case.

He added that no one has come forward yet to shed more light on the issue.

“We will not compromise on the issue of bullying but we also do not want any false allegations to be made against armed forces personnel.

“Don’t be carried away by the things you read online. I don’t want our personnel to be tried by the court of social media.”

In a Facebook post yesterday, Hishammuddin shared a screenshot of a tweet by user @pedoqpop, who had shared a private message from someone who expressed concern about their brother who was allegedly being bullied by his seniors in his army camp.

In his post asking the person to come forward, Hishammuddin promised that the person’s identity would be kept secret.

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