Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said small, private gatherings to celebrate Christmas or New Year are allowed, only if those attending have carried out self-tests beforehand.
He also disclosed that a second Omicron case had been detected in the country, involving an eight-year-old Malaysian girl who had travelled to Nigeria. She had tested negative for Covid-19 before her arrival.
The girl’s family who travelled with her had tested negative and were being placed under quarantine, he told reporters at Parliament.
He said 18 more suspected Omicron cases were being run through genomic sequencing to ascertain if they were indeed the new variant.
On the girl with Omicron, Khairy said the family had arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) from Lagos, Nigeria, via a transit flight in Doha on Dec 7. She arrived with her mother and younger sister and tested positive on arrival.
The mother and younger sister tested negative after tests carried out on the fifth and 11th days. Khairy said that the taxi driver who took the family home was being tested.
He said there were 35 others on the same flight, but they had tested negative on the fifth day.
As for the 18 cases suspected to be positive for Omicron, Khairy said the travellers were from various countries. Confirmation on the variant was expected tomorrow.
All aged above 60 without boosters to be considered ‘not fully vaccinated’
Khairy said those aged 60 and above without booster shots would be considered not fully vaccinated from February, regardless of what vaccine they had been given before.
He said they would only regain their full vaccinated status after receiving their booster dose.
He said this also applied to those aged 18 and above who had taken Sinovac shots before.
Khairy said the government would be reopening mega vaccination centres (PPVs) to administer booster shots to ramp up efforts against Omicron.
He said studies had shown that booster shots protected against the worst effects of the new variant.
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