Umrah 2022 Malaysia suspended until futher notice

penunggu

PETALING JAYA: All umrah trips have been temporarily suspended while pilgrims who have just returned from umrah must undergo quarantine at designated centres.

Health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this ruling would take effect from Jan 8 and will be in force until further notice in view of the higher number of Covid-19 Omicron variant cases discovered among those returning from Mecca.

Khairy said home quarantine will not be allowed for returning pilgrims from Monday, adding that they would be required to undergo quarantine for seven days at centres or hotels designated by the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma).

He said flight bookings for new umrah travel have also been postponed until further notice.

“This decision has been made to reduce the spread of the Omicron variant among returning pilgrims who just arrived in Malaysia and to slow down the spike in cases we have seen in other countries,” he told a press conference today.

The first batch of umrah pilgrims was allowed to travel to Mecca on Oct 13, 2021 and umrah-specific SOPs were issued by the National Security Council (MKN) on Oct 18.

As of Dec 30, 2021, a total of 11,108 umrah returnees had arrived in Malaysia and 1,306 (or 11.76%) were found to be positive for Covid-19.

From that number, 592 were confirmed positive during the first test after arrival in the country and another 712 on the fifth day of their quarantine.

On Dec 31, two more Omicron Covid-19 cases were confirmed, which added the total number of Omicron cases in the country to 64. Out of the 64, only one was a local transmission and the others were overseas travellers.

Out of the 64 cases, 50% (or 32) were umrah returnees.

Khairy also added that the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) had conducted the PCR Genotyping Assay test on the 1,077 Covid-19-positive samples from overseas travellers from Dec 21 until Dec 29, and 966 of them had shown the presumptive Omicron variant and were awaiting whole-genome sequencing (WGS) test.

Out of the 966 cases, 750 cases (or 77.6%) involved umrah returnees from Saudi Arabia.

As of Dec 30, there were nine clusters involving umrah returnees, where five of them were confirmed Omicron variant-induced clusters, one cluster involved presumptive Omicron variant awaiting WGS, and three were non-Omicron clusters.

According to him, mass gatherings among umrah pilgrims from different countries had exposed them to Covid-19 infection, including the Omicron variant.

They might have been infected in Saudi Arabia, but were not found positive during pre-departure as the infection was in the incubation stage.

The huge batches of umrah pilgrims — around 800 to 1,000 per day from four special flights — have also increased the risk of importing Covid-19 and the Omicron variant into the country.

“A lot of these returning umrah pilgrims had requested to undergo home quarantine for the seven days, but they had failed to observe it strictly, leading to their family members, neighbours and relatives being infected when they visited them,” said Khairy.

Upon observing the Omicron situation, a special meeting on Dec 31 was held among several agencies involved in umrah pilgrimage. They included the tourism, arts and culture ministry, wakaf, zakat and haj department (Jawhar), transport ministry, MKN, Nadma, immigration department, and Persatuan Agensi Pelancongan Umrah dan Haji (Papuh).

Special meeting

This was followed by a special meeting chaired by senior defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein, which discussed the postponement of umrah travel.

Several recommendations were made at the meeting:

Temporarily postpone all permitted umrah travel, starting from Jan 8. There will be no travel permitted after Jan 7 until a date to be announced soon;
Postponement of new umrah flight ticket bookings starting Jan 1;
Mandatory quarantine in quarantine stations or hotels designated as quarantine stations by Nadma for umrah returnees, starting Jan 3 onwards;
Umrah pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia from today until Jan 7 will be allowed to proceed with their travel. However, they are required to observe mandatory quarantine at quarantine stations or hotels designated by Nadma.
The temporary suspension of umrah travel has been approved by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, according to Khairy.

Khairy hoped that the temporary postponement would help reduce the spread of Omicron cases in the country, as well as slow down the spike in Covid-19 cases.

He also hoped that it would buy the government some time to safely plan for umrah pilgrimage and supervise pilgrims before travel is allowed to resume.

Umrah pilgrims returning home are required to do the following:

Do Covid-19 RT-PCR test two days before the departure date;
Do RT-PCR test on arrival;
Observe seven-day quarantine period at quarantine stations;
Self-test using RTK Ag if they exhibit symptoms; and,
Do RT-PCR test on the fifth day of quarantine.
Umrah pilgrims will be only allowed to leave the quarantine station on their eighth day if they are tested negative on their fifth day of quarantine.

The health ministry advised all umrah returnees currently observing home quarantine to strictly adhere to the quarantine measures.

“They are discouraged from receiving guests during their quarantine period to avoid the spread of Covid-19 among family members and eventually to the community.

“Individuals who fail to do so will be charged under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988,” said Khairy.

Towards the end of the press conference, Khairy said that the government did not intend to deprive Muslims of their right to perform the umrah or restrict Malaysians from going on any other international travel.

He hoped people would realise that the government’s measures were necessary to reduce the spread of Covid-19 as well as the Omicron variant in the country.

Sumber :FMT

krustykrab

Elok jgk buat mcm ni...
Dr berhabis duit konon nk beribadah..baru jejak kaki kt tanah air tak sampai 24 jam dah terpancar sisi gelap...
Tunggu je la bila covid ni terhapus lagipun umrah ni bukan wajib pun..haji pun tuhan ckp bila BERKEMAMPUAN

Dovahkiin

Tgk fb live kkm. Tgh pengumuman pasal ni.

DARSITA

Terpulanglah pd individu. Ada yang pergi utk beribadat ada juga pergi utk beribadat dan jadikan bahan tontonan Instagram.

Tapi jika govt ambil langkah ini utk stop virus Omicron kita terima sahaja la. Nak PKP lagi ke?

Dovahkiin

Mulai 8/1/2022, semua penerbangan umrah ditangguhkan.

abangbikerz

tindakan tepat

Dovahkiin

Alahai mat2 rempit dalam live kj ni, baju org dikecohkan, agenda yahudi ke hulu hilir, mcm boleh mati kalau tak pergi umrah. Aiyoo... Memalukan.

helicornia

Biarla yg wajib haji tu dilepaskan.umrah ni elok hold dulu

Normabaru

Aik..news kaka baca TD kata Dr 8hb..sudah tukar ka boss?

Artemesiaa

Dah confirm dah solat pun dah berjarak semula disana

adm7

Dah lama pesan tutup dulu sempadan negara untuk elak varian omicron. Jangan nanti ada meroyan tak boleh ke luar negara dan salahkan umat Islam sekali lagi sebab bawa pulang varian omicron ni

musangbodoh

1 st covid terlepas kt epot
omicron pun epot juga

last2 c/measure kerajaan mcm hauk...

kelapaparut

Artemesiaa replied at 1-1-2022 11:33 AM
Dah confirm dah solat pun dah berjarak semula disana

lobai2 local marah sgt kite semue smyg jarak, kate agenda yahudi segala bagai, punca ditimpa bala banjir la, malaysia negara liberal secular..dah tu kjaan saudi pun suruh smbhyg jarak, lg panas meronta lobai