KJ projects possibly 40,000 daily cases, but notes a “decoupling” effect of infection surges from much slower increases of hospitalisations, ICU admissions, ventilated cases, and mortality.
It is crucial to implement safer voting practices, ban physical campaigning, increase SOP enforcement, and consider postponing the elections if the public health situation drastically worsens.
The Health Ministry also recommends employers to provide “high-quality” N95 or KF94 masks for their staff, and provide test kits, especially those who display Covid symptoms.
The government will also review its current Covid isolation requirements, but decisions will only be made after Covid trends from the Chinese New Year festivities are factored in.
Khairy Jamaluddin also suggests doing away with the logbook provided at public premises for patrons to record their details upon entry, as MOH does not use it for contact tracing.
Khairy Jamaluddin says the implementation of strict SOPs and increased genomic surveillance helped to control Covid-19 cases during the Nov 20 Melaka state election.
An MOH official says Pakatan Harapan is also permitted to organise events related to the Melaka election in Phase 4 states outside Melaka as long as SOPs are followed.