Adham relaxes quarantine rules for fellow ministers on official trips
Health Minister Dr Adham Baba issued an order providing more lenient quarantine rules for his fellow ministers on official overseas trips.
The order essentially reduces ministers’ quarantine period from 10 days to three.
The order, cited as the “Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease (Exemption) Order 2021”, was published in the federal gazette today...
Health Minister Dr Adham Baba issued an order providing more lenient quarantine rules for his fellow ministers on official overseas trips.
The order essentially reduces ministers’ quarantine period from 10 days to three.
The order, cited as the “Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease (Exemption) Order 2021”, was published in the federal gazette today.
It was signed by Adham and will take effect tomorrow (Feb 9).
The order states: “The minister (Adham) exempts cabinet ministers who return from any overseas official visits from the application of Section 15 of the Act”.
This was in reference to the Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease Act 1988 (Act 342).
Section 15 states: “An authorised officer may order any contact to undergo observation in such place and for such period as he may think fit, or to undergo surveillance until he may be discharged without danger to the public”.
The current quarantine period set by the government for people entering the country from overseas is 10 days.
With Adham’s order, ministers returning from an overseas official trip will instead undergo “observation for three days or undergo surveillance until discharged without danger to the public”.
It is unclear if the order will apply to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who returned to Malaysia last Friday (Feb 5) after a two-day official visit to Indonesia.
If the order applies to Muhyiddin, then he should be released from observation tomorrow, the same day the order takes effect.
Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein is also on an official trip to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
He will return to Malaysia after the order has already taken effect and therefore will only need to be quarantined for three days.
In August last year, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Khairuddin Aman Razali was fined RM1,000 after failing to observe quarantine rules upon returning to Malaysia from Turkey.
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