Omicron may not be the last variant to surface to end the Covid-19 pandemic

Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin hopes the Omicron wave to be over in the next one to two months to allow Hari Raya Aidilfitri to be celebrated in early May without movement restrictions.

But Omicron may not be the last variant to surface to end the Covid-19 pandemic.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expects more Covid-19 variants and urge New Zealanders to prepare to more variants of the virus this year.

New Zealand has for the past week hit new records for daily case numbers, including a record 243 cases on Saturday. She expects New Zealand’s cases to peak at between 10,000 and 30,000 cases a day.

If Malaysia follows New Zealand’s example, then Malaysia’s peak of daily cases, which was 24,599 cases on August 26, may be increased a few times.

The Omicron is sweeping ASEAN nations. Yesterday Singapore reported 13,011 new cases, Indonesia 37,492 cases, Vietnam 21,909 cases and Thailand 10,398 cases. Philippines registered the lowest daily new cases in 2022 – 3,574 cases – after an earlier explosive surge of Omicron cases.

The mortality rate of Omicron is low as compared to Delta. Malaysia’s fatality numbers in the last two weeks is 126 as compared to the daily peak of 592 deaths on September 11, 2021.

Globally, the cumulative Covid-19 cases have exceeded 400 million cases, with over 5.7 million deaths.

With 2,939,198 Covid-19 cases and 32,056 Covid-19 deaths, Malaysia has fallen from No. 20 four months ago to No. 28 for nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases - losing out to Peru, Japan, Belgium, Israel Czechia, Canada and Portugal.

Malaysia should fall lower in the ranking among nations for the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases.