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Saturday 1 July 2023

Almost a return to pre-Covid days; Five-day quarantine from July 5

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is about to set to return to its pre-Covid-19 conditions, but with a difference.

Malaysians will have to wear masks, practise safe distancing and other health measures if they have an infection, or if they are high-risk individuals in crowded areas.

“The new protocols allow Malaysians to return to pre-Covd-19 times, but with all the public health knowledge and preventive measures internalised in them,” said Prof Dr Moy Foong Ming of Universiti Malaya’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine.

She was commenting on the latest SOP announced by the Health Ministry as the country moves towards endemicity.

With the choice given back to the people, Dr Moy said people should weigh their own risks while co-existing with the virus.

“When they are infected or if there is an outbreak in their community, they should practise those old measures.

“The new SOP gives people the choice to put on a mask or not. Of course, those who test positive must wear a mask.

“Those in contact with patients in a hospital also need to wear a mask.

“The non-high-risk people may need to practise precaution because they can infect the high-risk persons around them, like elderly, pregnant women or immunocompromised individuals,” she said in an interview yesterday.

Prof Moy also called on the government to keep watch on any new variants globally.

Family physician Dr Raj Kumar Maharajah also said it was important to be wary of new variants.

“I support the government’s move to enforce masks for those infected. In other countries, we can see people have taken off their masks,” he said.

Dr Raj Kumar, the former president of the Medical Practitioners Coalition Association of Malaysia, said Covid-19 had become like a “common flu” now, with a significant decrease in the number of new cases and deaths.

“We should move forward, but without letting our guard down. When infected, just stay at home.

“We must be more responsible, and maintain hygiene,” he said, adding that there was no harm in continuing to use the mask outdoors.

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Zaliha: Five-day quarantine from July 5

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PETALING JAYA: Starting July 5, the isolation period for Covid-19 patients will be shortened from seven days to five.

This is in view of studies which showed that infectivity is high in the first five days from the onset of symptoms when the viral load is high, said Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa.

She also said that the wearing of face masks would no longer be compulsory on public transport and in hospitals effective July 5.

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However, she said that people with respiratory symptoms were encouraged to mask up to avoid spreading infections on public transport.

However, she said that people with respiratory symptoms were encouraged to mask up to avoid spreading infections on public transport.

Also, Covid-19 positive individuals and those handling them are required to wear face masks in healthcare facilities.

“High-risk individuals like senior citizens, those with chronic diseases, individuals with low immunity or pregnant women are encouraged to wear face masks, especially in crowded places and areas with poor ventilation,” she said in a statement yesterday.

Although the Covid-19 situation was not at a worrying level and health services were not under pressure, she said the ministry decided to extend the status of local infection areas in Malaysia, due to end today, by another six months until Dec 31.

This is to facilitate the management of the disease as there are risks of emergence of new variants and sub-variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the country.

“Apart from this, mass gatherings are expected to occur during the Hari Raya Aidiladha celebration and also the (coming) state elections, which risk contributing to an increase in cases and burdening the government healthcare service system if prevention and control measures are not fully implemented.

“It is to enable the enforcement of several provisions under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Measures within the Infected Local Areas) (National Recovery Plan) (Transition to Endemic Phase) Regulations 2022, formulated on the powers of the minister under Subsection 11(2) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act,” she said.

Dr Zaliha said new Covid-19 cases had declined by 53.5% (5,801 cases to 2,698 cases) and deaths dropped by 35.3% (17 cases to 11 cases) in the past five weeks.

In terms of hospital capacity, she said the admissions of Covid-19 patients to public hospitals and bed occupancy had dropped while usage of Intensive Care Unit beds remained stable at 6% compared to the previous epidemiological week.

She also said 16,337,744 people or 50% of the country’s population had received the first booster dose while only 825,275 (2.5%) had been injected with the second booster as of June 27.

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Not many wear face masks overseas, say M'sian travellers

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/06/30/not-many-wear-face-masks-overseas-say-msian-travellers

Tuesday 3 January 2023

West’s attempts to deny China’s three-year effort against COVID by criticizing a short period of imperfection will end up in vain; by criticizing China’s COVID policies, West is getting its retaliation in first

Children skate at a business center in Beijing, capital of China, Dec 24, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

After easing epidemic restrictions, China is facing a new wave of COVID infections. And Western media is wasting no time promoting the narrative that China's three-year fight against the virus is ending in failure. Take a CNN article published on Wednesday. It suggests that zero-COVID was supposed to prove China's supremacy, but it went so wrong.

CNN compared the start of 2022 - "when Beijing showcased the success of its COVID containment measures by keeping the coronavirus largely at bay from the Winter Olympics" - with the "chaos and disarray" by the end of the year.

It's not hard to find that those who once smeared China as "authoritarian" because of strict COVID containment measures are the same group of forces who are now accusing China of walking into "chaos and disarray" after its COVID policy is optimized. This time, they have a vicious goal - to deny China's whole efforts over the past three years, to discredit China's national governance fundamentally.

China's 2022 journey started from the Winter Olympic Games, the first global comprehensive sports event that has been successfully held as scheduled since the outbreak of the pandemic. Later, some cities and regions, represented by Shanghai, went through a rebound of COVID cases. At the end of the year, China gradually adjusts its policies, initiating a transition mode toward returning to normalcy.

Unlike the previous two years, the major virus that confronts China in 2022 is Omicron. Soon after the virus was spotted in China by the end of 2021, it is realized that Omicron spreads fast and outpaces other variants of coronavirus where community transmission occurs. China's epidemic prevention and control measures in 2022 can be argued as a process of constant adjustment and optimization in the face of the changing situation of the epidemic. As it turned out, Omicron can hardly be blocked, but is less virulent than earlier strains like Alpha and Delta. Against this backdrop, China has decided to open up. The result now does prove that it is more transmissible, but the percentage of cases causing severe illness is low.

However, one can feel the barely contained glee in Western journalists' reporting when touching upon this round of infections. After all, China's previous response made the policies of quite a few Western countries look inept by comparison and, because of the same reason, made their elites anxious.

Yet those Westerners' attempts to deny China's three-year effort against COVID by criticizing a short period of imperfection will end up in vain. In terms of China's fight against the epidemic, one cannot separate 2022 from the two previous years. To grade China's handling of the public health crisis, one should examine it based on the big picture.

First, whether people's lives and health are well protected is beyond all doubt the top criterion. China not only avoided the high mortality rates like those in the US and European countries, but also witnessed a steady growth in life expectancy. By contrast, US life expectancy has dropped to the lowest level since 1996.

Second, China's economic development was not so much disturbed. China is the only major economy in the world with positive GDP growth in 2020. As grocery store shelves across the US were wiped clean and have stayed empty for quite a long time, there is no such situation in China. Nor has China ever faced severe inflation like in developed countries. China's domestic market supply is basically operating in full motion. Against the backdrop of this winter, this can be described as a miracle, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Neither is there social turmoil in China, expected by the West. Some people have complaints, but most trust the government. Because the achievements made over the past three years are solid, thanks to China's institutional advantages. Take two examples. China has always put the people and their lives first when dealing with the epidemic; China is capable of pooling resources and mobilizing forces from all quarters to confront major challenges. Quite a few Western countries have failed that test.

Omicron did cause a shocking wave in China. Yet as Liang Wannian, head of China's COVID-19 response expert panel under the National Health Commission, said, some Chinese cities have passed or are passing the first wave of peak infections without frightening widespread levels of death. This is because we have postponed the easing of restriction, kept away from the time when the virus was the most savage.

By the end of 2022, there are problems and imperfections. But China has done relatively the best in battling the virus. There is no major panic during the latest COVID wave, because people know that the principle "nothing is more precious than people's lives'' still prevails. And the Chinese society will never head toward a point where the natural selection of the human species is becoming a reality, or in other words, Social Darwinism, like what has been going on in the West.

Western media outlets and elites are only accusing China to make themselves feel better. The truth is, there will be pains in China's transition period, but the day the West wants to see - when China is trapped in a worse quagmire of the epidemic than the West - will not come.

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By criticizing China’s COVID policies, West is getting its retaliation in first

llustration: Chen Xia/GT

For almost three years, China's dynamic zero-COVID policy was phenomenally successful, particularly when compared to other countries like the UK and the US which appeared to place their economies above the health of their citizens.

Those countries in the West poured scorn on China, alleging its behavior was damaging to its economy and therefore - because so much of the world is mutually connected to China's economy - impacting negatively the West's wealth. These criticisms came because those countries, when striking a balance between safeguarding their people's wellbeing and protecting their economies, found a different center of balance than China. They were prepared to take greater risks than China, and for this China was castigated.

Today, those other countries are continuing to pour scorn on China, but this time the criticism is because China has changed direction. But their motivations are the same: they are concerned about the impact not on public health, but on their economies.

In the media, reports are mostly heavily negative. Their tone exposed in language, often at odds with what might be expected to be dispassionate, objective reportage. Terms like a "tsunami" of infections, the state "rushing" to respond, an "abrupt" or "screeching U-turn" in policy are used to suggest that the new measures are unplanned or panic-stricken. There has been frequent, and pointed, mention of China's system, as if this alone was costing people's lives. Correspondents, some of them not even in China, have been relying on what they themselves acknowledge to be unverified anecdotal stories and supposed leaks of information which have not been confirmed.

In their eyes, it seems, China cannot win: it is damned, whatever it does.

China's zero-COVID policy was not perfect, but it is undeniable that it saved many lives. In the US, about 1.1 million deaths have been registered as resulting from COVID. In the UK - where the government knowingly sent thousands of infected elderly hospital patients into care homes where they passed on the sickness to other residents and staff: condemning them to their deaths - about 213,000 have died.

Even allowing for different counting and classifying methodologies and other factors, the differences are stark, and the conclusion is clear: Dynamic zero-COVID worked.

China walked the tightrope to keep its people alive. The US and UK lost their balance and fell. When the protests in China began, they were almost gleefully reported in the West as proof that a policy which saved millions from death or disability was no good. And still the criticism comes. How can countries which sacrifice their own citizens for the sake of their economies then feel able to criticize others? No politicians in the West have earned that right.

Now, we are seeing the media outside China reporting "concerns" that China may lose control and possibly enable new COVID variants to escape into the world. Whether it is the London-based international news agency Reuters, or Germany's state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle, or America's state-funded National Public Radio, stories are repeated, calling for the West to brace itself for a surge in COVID; that China is "losing its grip" on the virus. Those stories regularly suggest that it is the Chinese system to blame. Conveniently, there is no suggestion that Western capitalist "democratic" system is at fault.

Why are they so smug? Perhaps they are getting their retaliation in first. This is a saying which describes the behavior of a cynical individual who knows they are in the wrong, but who hopes that a distraction technique of blaming someone else even before a catastrophe has occurred will lessen the chance of the cynical individual being held responsible.

By Mark Blacklock - The author is a journalist and lecturer living in Britain.

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