Malaysia still far from being in endemic state - Khairy

SHAH ALAM - Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia is still far from being in an endemic state.

In a tweet today, he said it would probably be a slow transition to endemicity for the country.

“No, we are not near endemic, yet. This is a (probably slow) transition to endemicity.

“Endemic suggests the disease is not widespread without public health measures (like wearing masks). We are far from endemic,” he wrote.

The new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours dropped to 17,476 from 18,560 cases recorded the day before.

This brings the cumulative number of infections to 4,184,191 from when the outbreak started.

The country also recorded 30 Covid-19 fatalities which included five brought-in-dead cases.

In terms of cases, Selangor recorded the highest daily cases, with 10, 623 infections detected, yesterday, followed by Kuala Lumpur (1, 191 cases), Perak (788 cases), Penang (730 cases) and Sarawak (648 cases)

The three states which recorded the highest number of deaths were Johor (eight cases), Negeri Sembilan (four cases) and Kedah (three cases).

Currently, there were 206, 979 active Covid-19 cases, out of which 201,924 or 97.6 per cent were home quarantined.

However, only 615 people were being treated at low risked quarantine centres while another 4,177 cases were hospitalised.

A total of 107 people were in intensive care units, with 168 of them requiring ventilator support

As of yesterday, there were 17,321 patients who have recovered from the disease

Last month, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that the country will enter the Transition to Endemic Phase and will reopen its borders starting April 1 (Friday).

This, he said was an exit strategy to enable people to return almost to normal life after two years struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic.