KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — Malaysia cannot afford, in the economic and welfare aspects, to implement a lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

He said on the other hand, the government’s strategy to contain the pandemic was to implement mitigation strategies.

"There is no doubt that China’s approach (to enforce a lockdown) has been effective.

"However, their containment and ‘Zero Covid’ strategy also means a total lockdown (is enforced) when there are only three positive cases,” Khairy said in a Twitter post today.

In his tweet, Khairy also attached a screenshot of a news report headlined "Yuzhou: Second Chinese city forced into Covid lockdown”.

Khairy said Malaysia, after having successfully achieved high vaccination rates, had managed its Covid-19 cases effectively, besides constantly reminding the people to continue to adhere to standard operating procedures to ensure the fatality rate, use of intensive care units and hospital admissions can be reduced.

Meanwhile, Khary also expressed his full support for Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah to continue his duties as Health director-general.

His response was following Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing’s statement on Facebook today questioning Dr Noor Hisham’s background and expertise as a surgeon and not in the field of public health. — Bernama