KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 4): The week of Jan 29 to Feb 4, during which the Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays were observed, saw weekly Covid-19 cases jumping 26.25% to 39,084 from 30,957 in the previous week, as the number of daily cases surged past 7,000 on Friday (Feb 4) to 7,234 — the highest seen since Oct 10 last year.

Prior to Friday's jump in daily cases, the country was logging over 5,000 cases for three consecutive days.

The latest additions raised the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in Malaysia to 2,895,014, compared with 2,799,608 total recoveries. The weekly number of recoveries, meanwhile, rose 8.33% to 25,660 from 23,687 previously.

During the week, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the country was now better prepared for the rise in Covid-19 cases due to the Omicron variant, as the situation at present is not the same as in June to September last year, following the country's increased vaccination rate.

“More than a month ago, I said that we expect Omicron to become dominant here as it has elsewhere and that when it did, cases would rise. That’s why we sped up our booster programme. We are now seeing the predicted quick rise in cases. However, there is no need to panic. 

“There is a strong indication of decoupling between severe outcomes and cases. Our vaccination programmes — adults, adolescents and children — are working well,” Khairy tweeted on Tuesday.

Two days later, he said the Ministry of Health would only recommend the reopening of borders and relaxing quarantine requirements when Covid-19 booster vaccination, as well as vaccination among children show further improvement.

“The MoH is still having internal discussions on what threshold values we feel comfortable with in terms of vaccination of children and booster vaccination of adults. We will be making recommendations to the quartet ministerial meeting. 

“I want to see a bit more (a higher booster vaccination rate). I call on everyone who has yet to get the booster shot to go get it, and for all parents to enrol their children in the immunisation programme,” he reportedly told a media conference.

Malaysia administered 596,477 booster vaccinations between Jan 28 and Feb 3 — down 52.55% from the 1,257,053 doses the prior week — primarily due to the festive holidays. This is the third consecutive week of decline since the country recorded its highest weekly number of booster vaccinations in the week of Jan 7 to Jan 13, when 1,418,890 doses were given.

To date, 12,157,974 million booster doses have been given out since the booster vaccination programme was rolled out last October, of which 8,772 doses went to people aged 12-17; 2,562,225 doses to ages 18-29; 2,578,045 doses to ages 30-39; 2,246,720 doses to ages 40-49; 1,894,624 doses to ages 50-59; 1,422,754 doses to ages 60-69; 641,498 doses to ages 70-79; and 185,984 doses to people aged 80.

The classification of an additional 617,352 doses is still under investigation by the Ministry of Health, according to the ministry’s data on Github. 

With more than 50% of adults and almost 70% of the elderly having received their Covid-19 booster dose, Khairy said Malaysia has every hope that it can weather the Omicron wave with carefully calibrated and proportionate measures.

“Follow SOPs (standard operating procedures). #TRIIS. Get boosted. Get your kids vaccinated. We can do this,” he added in his tweet. 

The number of active cases that carry high risks of transmission rose to 61,426 on Thursday (Feb 3) — the highest level seen since Dec 12, 2021 (60,778 active cases), up 28.49% from 47,805 cases reported last Thursday (Jan 27).

Meanwhile, weekly Covid-linked deaths (Jan 28 to Feb 3) decreased to 60, from 87 cases last week.

Total coronavirus-related deaths in Malaysia now stands at 32,000, including 6,449 brought-in-dead cases or BID, which refers to patients found dead on arrival at hospitals.

“Hospital capacity utilisation remains under control and we are prepared to deal with a surge [in cases],” said Khairy.