The Omicron wave is here, says Khairy

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia should expect to see a surge in cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

In an ominous post, he took to Twitter to say: “The Omicron wave has started in Malaysia.”

While he said such cases would increase, he was confident the Covid-19 outbreak involving the Omicron variant would be under control thanks to the country’s high vaccination rate.

Stating that the country’s healthcare system is prepared for the Omicron wave, Khairy also noted that Category 3, 4 and 5 cases are on the decline.

“Let us overcome this wave together,” he said.

The first Omicron case in Malaysia was a student from South Africa who tested positive after arriving in the country on Nov 19.

A total of 601 Omicron cases have been detected in the country as of yesterday, with health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday stating that 162 new Omicron cases were detected since Sunday.

Meanwhile, 6,188 Delta, 233 Beta and 14 Alpha cases were detected during the same period.

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday said that the risk level related to the Omicron variant remains very high, with the numbers of new Covid-19 cases reaching another record last week.

The global health body said Omicron continued to increase its dominance globally over the other variants of concern, with Omicron accounting for 89.1% of samples collected in the last 30 days that have been sequenced and uploaded to the Gisaid global science initiative.

News agency AFP reported that Delta – previously the world’s dominant variant – now makes up 10.7%

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