In a Bernama report, she said the government is taking precautionary measures by implementing certain approaches at the nation’s checkpoints to curb the spread of Covid-19.

She said that as of Tuesday, no infections or symptoms were detected at the border entry points even though 7,000 tourists from China had entered the country since last Sunday.

The latest Covid-19 variant – a sub-variant of Omicron named BF.7 – is believed to be driving a surge in infections in China, resulting in calls from various quarters to ban Chinese travellers.

“The Covid-19 situation is under control and the people’s awareness is at a high level,” said Zaliha after the handover of the Pendang Hospital project by the works ministry here.

“As such, the situation does not warrant us to close the borders.”

Zaliha said that although the number of Covid-19 screenings is in the tens of thousands every day, the number of positive cases detected was low.

The health ministry recently announced that all travellers arriving in Malaysia will have to undergo temperature checks for fever.

On Monday, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the number of new Covid-19 cases dropped by 14.2% last week to 3,231 from 3,767 recorded the week before.

The number of deaths dropped by 4.5% to 21 compared with 22 the week before, bringing the cumulative number of fatalities to 36,874.

A total of 5,026,677 Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the country since January 2020.