Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this was because nightclubs were still considered high-risk for Covid-19 transmission.

“There is only one type of premises that will remain on the ‘do not open’ list come April 1, that is nightclubs. This is because the government still considers them high-risk for Covid-19 transmission,” he said at a press conference held in the Parliament building today.

Nightclubs have remained closed since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that the government would begin the transition to the endemic phase from April 1.

He said the decision was made after taking into consideration the country’s high vaccination rate, low hospital bed usage for Covid-19 patients, and other risk factors.

With regard to calls for the reduction of RT-PCR test prices, Khairy said it was more fundamental to note that once Malaysia transitions to the endemic phase, there was no need to rely on RT-PCR tests anymore.

However, he said the ministry would be looking into lowering its costs but pointed out that there were a lot of factors that needed to be considered, such as the cost of machines and reagents to do these tests.

“We have to reduce the dependency on RT-PCR tests and focus on RTK-Antigen tests.

“What’s important now is to monitor the quality of RTK-Antigen tests and make sure there is enough supply of these kits everywhere in the country,” he said.

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