KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry today encourages the people living in high contact and mobility settings to conduct regular Covid-19 testings.
The advice came from Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin as the country prepares for the reopening interstate borders once the vaccination rate involving the adult population who have been fully inoculated reachers 90 per cent.
According to Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV), 88.4 per cent or 20,819,254 people have been fully vaccinated as of 11.59pm yesterday.
"(It is) 1.6 per cent (away from achieving 90 per cent of adult population fully vaccination) before interstate borders open.
"While @KKMPutrajaya (Health Ministry) has transitioned to symptomatic testing, we encourage people who are in high contact & mobility settings to test regularly.
"If you want to balik kampung (returning to hometowns) to see elderly parents, do an RTK saliva test. Keep them safe," he said in a posting on his official Twitter account.
Khairy added that as the country gearing towards treating the pandemic as endemic, the country could not be able to police the situation unlike before.
"Much will now depend on personal responsibility and behaviour. I believe we can rise to the challenge in #ReopeningSafely," he said.
In a reply to a social media user, Khairy said while police will transition away from mounting roadblocks, the authorities will continue to conduct checks on compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOP) at restaurants and premises.
He added this is important in the effort to reduce the number of cases and part of Op Patuh.
"Random checks on restaurants and premises will continue to check on SOP compliance especially gatekeeping at entrance.
"This still be important. But certainly no massive roadblocks," he said.