PUTRAJAYA, Sept 1 – All efforts taken by the Health Ministry towards the Covid-19 will be geared towards preparing to live with the reality that the virus will be endemic, meaning it will be prevalent even when there has been a successful reduction in the number of positive cases, deaths and hospital admissions, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.
At a press conference to update on the Covid-19 situation in the country, he said the reality that the virus will be present among us would have to accepted.
This will be also in line with what other countries are doing, where the people would have to live with the virus by transiting from total containment to an endemic phase with the practice of new norms to live healthy and safe lives.
With the continuing of vaccination and adherence to the standard operating procedures, the country should be able to enter the endemic phase, he said.
This will also allow for the opening of several sectors and for people to live their lives and carry out their functions under a new norm.
Towards this, the government will also announce several measures to make the existing SOPs easier to follow.
This will ensure that the SOPs are not too many or too complicated and easy to understand as we enter the endemic period.
Khairy, however also said that the ministry has no plans for now to do away with the SOP of using face mask. He added that some countries that had done that had seen a rise in cases of new variants.
Meanwhile, vaccinations will continue and people should also continue to take all the set precautions and responsibilities towards keeping the spread of Covid-19 in check, he said.
This will allow us to live safely in the endemic phase, he said.
On Wednesday, Sept 1, Malaysia reported a total of 18,762 new cases and 278 deaths overnight.
