As such, health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the decision to temporarily suspend the permission for umrah travel was one of the measures that had to be taken to prevent the spread of the variant.

“Based on the health ministry’s simulation, if we do not take preventive measures such as the temporary postponement of umrah travel and mandatory quarantine, we will see cases surge to over 15,000 a day between now and February,” he told a press conference here today.

He said the expected figure was the result of the health ministry’s projections through the susceptible, exposed, infectious, and recovered (SEIR) model using the infectivity rate (R-Nought or R0) of 0.95, 1.2 and 1.6, respectively.

Khairy said although Omicron variant infections were not as severe as the Delta variant so far, should the number of cases increase to 30,000, hospital admissions would also surge, even though the patients may only be under Categories 1 and 2.

On the administration of booster doses, he said four integrated vaccination centres (PPVs) with a much bigger capacity would start operating on Jan 15 at the Kuala Lumpur World Trade Centre (WTCKL), Axiata Arena Bukit Jalil, Ideal Convention Centre (IDCC) Shah Alam, and Soka Gakkai in Klang.

“The booster dose will be given through appointments made through the MySejahtera application or short message service (SMS),” he said.

However, individuals can contact the Private General Practitioners Vaccination Centres (PPV-GP) listed on the ProtectHealth website to register for the clinic’s waitlist.

To date, 30% of the adult population and 52% of senior citizens in the country have received their booster shots, he said.

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