‘No need to take risks’: Malaysians fear Covid-19 resurgence ahead of China tourists’ return
- Malaysians are questioning the rush to allow Chinese tourists to enter, worried the influx will push the country back into lockdown
- Concerns in Thailand also over a potential surge in sick or unvaccinated visitors, with some hospitals to offer AstraZeneca jabs to Chinese tourists
Malaysian social media has been bristling at the looming return of Chinese tourists, with the public weighing up the risks of a resurgence of Covid-19 – driven by potential new variants – denting a fragile economic recovery.
Since China dropped its zero-Covid stance in December, the virus has spread through its mammoth population, where vaccine uptake has been patchy.
On Sunday, China is due to reopen its borders after three years, prompting an expected exodus from its travel-starved public in time for Lunar New Year.
But in Malaysia, unease is building as the countdown to the release of the world’s biggest population from an effective nationwide quarantine nears.
Malaysia’s health ministry on Monday said the country had recorded cases of the dominant Covid variants in China.
“As of December 31, 2022, 4,148 cases have been infected with BA.5.2 and three cases with BF.7,” said the ministry’s director general Noor Hisham Abdullah.
Eighty per cent of the current cases in China involved these two variants, which had high potency for infection and reinfection, he added.
