PM to announce relaxed restrictions for vaccinated individuals 'soon'

 

Those who have completed their Covid-19 immunisation may soon see the government relaxing certain restrictions for them, said the Health Ministry.

In a press conference today, it was revealed that the government is planning to give them some "benefits of vaccination".

According to Health Minister Dr Adham Baba, the decision would be announced by the prime minister.

"This has been discussed in the National Recovery Council, of which the Health director-general and I are among its members.

"It is called benefits of vaccination, and will be announced by the prime minister in the near future," he said.

For the record, an individual is only considered as having a complete immunisation after two weeks of receiving the full number of doses required for a vaccine. For example, those taking Pfizer or Sinovac vaccines, which require two doses of vaccination, would only be considered as having completed their vaccination two weeks after taking their second jab.

The nationwide statistics showed that as of this week, 21.8 percent of the country's population have received two doses of Covid-19 immunisation.

Health Minister Dr Adham Baba

Adham said the ministry has tabled several criteria for the benefits of vaccination to the council, considering that several locations have reached 40 percent of their population fully vaccinated.

"We proposed that the council tells our society that there are certain benefits which we can give them after two weeks when they complete their two doses.

"These will be informed by the prime minister soon," he added.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah further revealed that they are looking at relaxing certain sectors for those who have been completed vaccination.

Among those cited as examples was the sports sector, where Noor Hisham said the group may be allowed to get involved in certain activities such as tennis.

"We will look at the level of compliance to the current SOPs, and relaxation would be given to certain sectors for those who have been vaccinated and comply with the rules.

"We learnt this from other countries, where they started relaxing some rules when their vaccination covers 30 or 40 percent of the population.

"However, it would not be for all, but only certain sectors. All these will be finalised and announced by the prime minister later," he said. - Mkini