TOURISTS from more than 20 countries and territories, which are deemed as high-risk due to the circulation of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, will not be allowed to enter Langkawi under the travel bubble initiative, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

Apart from tourists, individuals with travel history to the countries and territories in the past 14 days will also be denied entry into Langkawi.

“Meanwhile, residents of Langkawi (citizens and long-term pass holders) from the listed countries or have had travel history to the said countries over the last 14 days can only enter the country via KLIA and will be required to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine at a designated quarantine station. Direct flights to Langkawi are not allowed,” he sald.

The list includes the United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Nigeria, Belgium, Japan, Brazil, Norway, Czech Republic, France, Reunion Islands, Austria, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Ireland, United Arab Emirates and the United States.

The government has already temporarily barred direct and transit flights to and from eight African nations where the variant of concern has been detected. The eight countries are South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini,  Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

“Following the latest news on the discovery of the Omicron (B.1.1.259) variant, MOH has been monitoring (the situation) and has conducted risk analysis on countries where there has been an outbreak of the variant of concern (VOC),” he said.

Providing an update on Covid-19 variants, Noor Hisham said there were 515 new cases involving variants discovered between November 25 and today.

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM-UNIMAS) discovered 415 Delta cases, while the UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI-UKM) reported 46 and the Malaysia Genome and Vaccine Institute (MGI) detected 44.

The Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre (TIDREC), on the other hand, discovered 10 Delta cases.

So far, 4,432 Delta cases have been found in Malaysia, 226 cases of the Beta variant and 14 of the Alpha variant, bringing the cumulative number of VOC cases to 4,672.

There were also 20 variant of interest (VIC) cases comprising 13 Theta variant cases and four of the Kappa variant. – December 2, 2021.