We are cheered by this decisive step forward to living with Covid-19, check out the changes to Covid-19 Safe Management Measures from 29 March.

Keynote address by Mr Ong Ye Kung Minister for Health at the National Institutes of Health Malaysia:

March 24th: It is my pleasure to join all of you here today at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I thank Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for inviting me for this working visit, and giving our ministries this valuable opportunity to get to know each other better, and deepen our partnership and collaboration.

A Good Outlook

2. COVID-19 took the world by storm in 2020. No country has truly emerged from it. While there are countries which have declared the disease being endemic, they continue to have to manage high number of daily cases, severe illnesses and even deaths. This is not surprising, because this is what endemic means – living with COVID-19, and managing the risk it poses to our society, especially to those who are vulnerable.

3. For both Malaysia and Singapore, things are at present looking up. The wave has peaked and is subsiding quickly in Singapore. In Malaysia, there are also good indications that you are close to arriving at the leeward side of the transmission wave.

4. As the epidemic situation in both countries continues to improve, we can look forward to the resumption of more activities in the future. That must also include restoring the air and land connections between our countries. Our economies and societies are so closely intertwined. The people-to-people connections between Malaysia and Singapore have been incredibly numerous and close. Almost every family in Singapore will have relatives living in Malaysia. The Singapore-Kuala Lumpur aviation sector is the busiest in the world, as the Woodlands Causeway is for land border crossings.

5. I had a good discussion with Minister Khairy on working towards the full resumption of air and land travel between our countries for vaccinated persons. The agencies of both sides will work out the operational details, and we look forward to realising this soon.

6. Today, I would like to share the lessons that we have learnt after a difficult two years. The lessons were built upon what we learnt when we encountered SARS in 2003. It is good to take stock of the lessons from COVID-19, for we know it will not be the last pandemic crisis we have to handle. Today, I will share eight of these lessons.

First, follow the science.

7. A pandemic is a force of nature. To manage it, we need to understand the virus, and formulate our responses accordingly. Scientific studies and findings are therefore extremely important.

Read the full speech here