Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said of the total, 61 were imported cases.
The remaining one is still under investigation, but is suspected to be a local infection.
Khairy said this local transmission was reported in Sarawak yesterday involving a 38-year-old Chinese national who had been working in an engineering company there for the past three years.
He said the man had undergone a Covid-19 test on Dec 18 after suffering from fever and cough for five days before that. The patient was then admitted to the quarantine centre at the Sarawak general hospital on Dec 20.
“The sample was sent to the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) for genomic sequencing and was confirmed to be of the Omicron variant on Dec 23.
“The person had not travelled out of the country for the past three years. The source of infection is still unknown and we are still investigating the matter,” he said.
Khairy said the patient, who has completed his vaccination, is reported to be in stable condition, adding that health authorities have ordered two contacts of the patient to be placed in quarantine stations for 14 days although their first test samples were negative.
Khairy also urged those returning from overseas to heed their surveillance orders including by not mingling with family members at home.
He said from the 49 new Omicron cases reported on Dec 23 and 24, 30 were detected in people returning from performing the umrah in Saudi Arabia.
“And it was found most of them did not observe this rule – they did not isolate from their family members and also accepted guests to their homes.
“Maybe there are some who want to obtain salam berkat but end up getting salam Omicron.
“So I hope this rule can be followed because this matter is serious. We want to make things easier so that’s why we allowed home quarantines but please follow the rules,” he said.
Khairy also said the probability of Omicron being in the community now is high, adding the case in Sarawak where the person did not have any travel record was an example.
“We suspect there will be spikes in the coming weeks. Although there are studies in the UK that Omicron is not as bad as the Delta variant, we don’t actually know how severe the symptoms will be because the epidemiology in Malaysia is different,” he said.
As such, he said the government is trying to figure out how to tighten testing at the international entry points in the country.
“Maybe we will require RT-PCR and RTK Rapid Antigen tests but we have to look at the facilities at the entry points because we don’t want to make it difficult for those returning home,” he said.
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