People board a bus back to Malaysia as the Vaccinated Travel Lane between Singapore and Malaysia opened November 29, 2021. — Reuters pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the Malaysia-Singapore Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) will remain open despite the detection of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in both countries.
In a press conference today, Khairy said the health authorities of both countries were sharing daily updates on their respective Covid-19 domestic situation.
“I’ve spoken to my Singaporean counterpart this morning, Mr Ong Ye Kung, and we have reaffirmed that the VTL will continue and we will continue to update each other on a daily basis and coordinate our response accordingly,” he said briefly.
Earlier, Khairy reported Malaysia’s first confirmed case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, a traveller arriving from South Africa on November 19.
Yesterday, Singapore’s Ministry of Health also reported two imported Covid-19 cases of the Omicron variant.
Last week, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that both Malaysia and Singapore will simultaneously launch both air and land VTL between both countries on November 29.
Under both the land and air VTL, fully vaccinated travellers can travel between Singapore and Malaysia but subject to Covid-19 tests in lieu of serving quarantine or a stay-home notice.
Khairy has since said that travellers using the VTL, both air and land, must now perform Covid-19 self-tests on the third and seventh days after their arrival due to the new Omicron variant.
The results must also be reported through the MySejahtera app.
To date, since the launch of the VTL on Monday, two Covid-19 cases have been detected, involving one traveller from Singapore, while the other was from Malaysia.