IAS head Adeeba Kamarulzaman calls for an international code of conduct to guide countries’ responses to new variants, describing travel bans as “political posturing”.
The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) says Pfizer or Moderna is a preferred Covid-19 booster, regardless of the vaccine type in primary vaccination.
Variants like the Omicron were allowed to mutate because of vaccine inequity. The virus will continue to spread, thrive, and mutate among the unvaccinated.
Khairy Jamaluddin also says he will request additional allocations from the Treasury to boost Covid-19 genomic surveillance capacity; Malaysia’s current genome sequencing capacity is 1,500 samples monthly.
Malaysians and permanent residents returning from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe will need to undergo mandatory quarantine at quarantine stations regardless of vaccination status.
The Delta variant makes it likely that the Covid-19 virus will continue to spread, and we will all likely be infected at least once during our lifetime.