PETALING JAYA: Malaysia should only declare the Covid-19 pandemic is over when the number of daily cases drops below 1,000, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said today.
As such, he said it was still too early for health minister Khairy Jamaluddin to talk of Covid-19 being endemic from next month when the number of cases and deaths are still high.
“It is premature for Khairy to talk about Covid-19 becoming endemic in Malaysia at the end of October when Covid-19 death rates are still high despite the high vaccination rate.
“Many pandemics do end and become endemic, morphing into something that is no longer an emergency. People then simply learn to cope with it, like the flu or common cold. But the question is when and how do we get to that point,” Lim said in a statement.
He added that while vaccines have changed the balance with the ability to contain Covid-19’s worst outcomes, they alone cannot drive down hospitalisations and deaths, especially with the rise of dangerous variants.
“Vaccines provide great but not perfect protection.”
The Iskandar Puteri MP said while Malaysia should move away from the “Zero Covid” policy to ”Live with Covid,” there needs to be a proper balancing act, adding that there must also be a resumption of normal, pre-pandemic economic and social life.
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