The Malaysian Insight

THE Ministry of Health will present the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the Malacca elections to the Covid-19 Pandemic Management Committee (JSPP) tomorrow, Khairy Jamaluddin said.

“MOH knows what happened in Sabah and we will take that into account to ensure there is no repeat of that,” said the minister during a press conference today.

Khairy, however, did not indicate what the new SOP for the state elections were.

When pressed on how the ministry will ensure there is no repeat of the Sabah incident, he said that the ministry had done its risk assessment.

“There was no vaccination or Delta variant at that time. But we will take all this into account when we present the issue tomorrow,” said Khairy.

Malaysia experienced its second surge of Covid-19 infections following the Sabah elections in September last year.

Returning campaigners and party workers from Sabah were not required to self-quarantine until several days later. This enabled new infections, brought about during the elections campaign, to enter Peninsular Malaysia following several months of low infection rates.

Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 infections continue to show a downward trend, dropping as much as 17.9% (from 63,722 cases in the 40^th epidemiology week – October 3-9, to 52,321 in week 41 – October 10-16), said the Health Ministry.

“The seven-day average has also declined by 20.9% from 248 cases per 100,000 population to 196 per 100,000 population,” it said.Despite the drop nationally, Kuala Lumpur saw a 7.8% increase in cases (from week 40 to week 41) followed by Putrajaya (3.3%) and Negeri Sembilan 4.1%.

The data corresponds to higher hospital admissions in these three states, following the opening of state borders on October 11, said the ministry. – October 21, 2021.