COVID-19 close contacts, irrespective of their vaccination status, will no longer need to undergo mandatory quarantine effective April 22, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today. 

The new Covid-19 protocol means that even the unvaccinated need not quarantine if they are identified as close contact to a Covid-19 case, unless they exhibit symptoms. 

“Those close contacts who are asymptomatic don’t have to undergo quarantine, regardless of their vaccination status.

“Only those who have symptoms are advised to self-quarantine,” the Khairy said at a press conference in Parliament today. 

Previously, only those who were boosted and asymptomatic were exempted from undergoing quarantine. 

Those boosted and symptomatic had to quarantine for five days. 

Close contacts who received only two doses of vaccine and were not boosted had to undergo five days quarantine, while the unvaccinated had to be quarantined for seven days. 

There are no changes in protocol for individuals who test positive, where the seven days quarantine remains. 

Khairy added that the MySejahtera check-in is still considered relevant for the purpose of tracing Covid-19 infections. 

He said this was based on data obtained when the Omicron variant was at its peak last month. 

“During the peak of the Omicron wave, we found that 45% of cases identified as casual contacts later tested positive and went into isolation. 

“So, to say that the MySejahtera tracking system is irrelevant, I don’t quite agree. Individuals were successfully isolated through this detection system. 

“So, there is still value for this tracking tool,” Khairy said. 

Khairy said the ministry was monitoring the pattern of Covid-19 infections in the country and would decide in the coming weeks on whether to continue using the app’s check-in feature. – April 14, 2022.