THE threat of a new Covid-19 wave is Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s biggest worry with the reopening of interstate travel from tomorrow.

Khairy said although he welcomes the easing of restrictions and reopening of borders, he added that the threat of another possible wave was apparent given the severity of the virus and the complacent attitude of the people.

“Every night I worry. I worry because we don’t know how this Sars-CoV-2 virus behaves… it’s a novel virus. We don’t know how it mutates, how it behaves and what it is likely to do next… and, most importantly, we also don’t know how people behave.

“I know everyone is going to be rushing to the borders tomorrow but at the back of my mind… as the health minister, my biggest worry is another wave,” he said today at the Malaysian Medical Association’s Malaysia Doctors’ Day Celebration.

Khairy did not rule out the possibility of another wave, saying several other countries with a high vaccination rate similar to that of Malaysia’s, have also experienced a wave of infections.

He said that although the majority of the new cases were in the less severe asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic categories 1 and 2, he said the chances of the severe cases increasing were there.

“Remember, the bottom of the pyramid gets bigger as the top of the pyramid gets bigger.

“As the infection grows, imagine 98% of the cases are in categories 1 and 2 but the remaining 2% in categories 3, 4 and 5 gets bigger in terms of the absolute number,” he said.

Now that freedom is given, Khairy urged everyone not to get complacent and continue to follow the standard operating procedure (SOP).

He said the severity of a possible new wave will not be indicated by the daily cases but by the ability of the public healthcare system to handle the surge.  

“Now that interstate travel is allowed, it doesn’t mean the SOP is gone. We must continue to observe the SOP even more strictly, even more widely and must ensure that we remind others that they must also follow the rules.  

“My biggest indicator is, as you know, not so much the daily case numbers but it is the stress on the public health system. That is my biggest worry.  

“If our public health system cannot handle the surge in cases, intensive care units, ventilators, oxygenated beds and of course admission into hospitals in general for Covid-19, then it’s going to put a tremendous stress not just the public healthcare infrastructure but also on our frontline workers and everyone else working to combat this pandemic. We cannot afford that anymore,” he said.  

Khairy said the transition into endemicity takes a whole-of-society approach and that everyone needs to play a part so the country successfully achieves that status.  

He said the country is still far from endemicity. 

“Now the responsibility is on you. If you really, really value and appreciate what the frontliners have been doing for the past one and a half years, you will be responsible, you will be self-aware. 

“You’ll ensure that you will take care of your health and health status to ensure that a surge doesn’t happen again.   

“It takes the whole society to ensure we can transition out of this pandemic, reopen safely and one day treat Covid as an endemic disease.  

“Not yet. We are far from endemicity. Don’t get me wrong. We are not endemic yet. We are transitioning out,” he said.  

Although Covid-19 testing is not compulsory, Khairy urged the public to follow the TRIIS measure (Test, Report, Isolate, Inform, Seek) as the country transitions from pandemic to endemic. – October 10, 2021.