KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will be under self-quarantine for 14 days, after being in contact with a minister who later tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement on Monday (Oct 5), Tan Sri Muhyiddin said despite all his recent tests for the coronavirus being negative, he would still be observing self-quarantine, as advised by the Health Ministry.
“This will not affect government affairs. I will continue to work from home and have video calls for meetings that have to be chaired by me,” he said.
As a precautionary measure, I have been undergoing swab tests to detect Covid-19 every two weeks since April 2020 and all these detection tests have been confirmed to be negative,” said the prime minister.
“I did three Covid-19 tests in the past three weeks on Sept 22, 26, 29 and they were found to be negative,” he added.
On Oct 3, Mr Muhyiddin chaired a Covid-19 ministerial special meeting at the Prime Minister’s Department, which was attended by ministers including de facto Islamic Affairs Minister Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri, who announced yesterday (mon) that he had tested positive for the virus.
It is learnt that other ministers who attended the meeting have also been advised to go on home quarantine.
In a Facebook post, Dr Zulkifli said: “To all Malaysians, I am currently under treatment after being tested positive for Covid-19… my health is good.”
He urged those who attended the same events as him between Sept 24 and Oct 4 to immediately get tested.
This is the second time Mr Muhyiddin has to be on home quarantine.
On May 22, he observed a 14-day quarantine after an officer at a post-Cabinet meeting he chaired tested positive for the coronavirus.
Malaysia has seen a recent spike in coronavirus cases, mostly related to election campaigning in Sabah, a new virus hotspot.
The country reported a record 432 new cases on Monday, the highest daily number since the pandemic hit the country. This brings the total cases since the outbreak began to 12,813.
No new fatalities were reported, keeping the death toll at 137.
Meanwhile, former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial was delayed as he was serving two-week home quarantine after travelling to Sabah, where a state election was held on Sept 26.
The trial will resume Oct 19.
