KUALA LUMPUR: More leaders of key Malaysian political parties met King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah on Thursday (Jun 10), the second day of a series of meetings called by the ruler.
Thursday's meetings began with an audience granted by the king to the deputy chief of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, who represented party president Hadi Awang, currently receiving treatment at the National Heart Institute.
Shortly after, Malaysian Chinese Association president Wee Ka Siong followed suit with his meeting with the king around noon.
Mr Tuan Ibrahim and Dr Wee are Cabinet members of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional government.
Both left the palace without speaking to reporters waiting outside the gate.
Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, chairman of the yet to be registered Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang), met the king in the afternoon.
Speaking in an online media conference, Dr Mahathir said that he has suggested the formation of a National Operations Council during his audience with the king, according to Malay Mail.
The council, better known by its Malay abbreviation Mageran, could potentially steer the country towards the right direction and help solve the health, economic, and social issues currently plaguing the country, said Dr Mahathir.
He said the king did not dismiss his suggestion outright, but pointed out that such a decision must be made by the government.
Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, right, wearing a face mask, waves as he leaves National Palace after meeting with the king in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday, June 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
The last political leader given an audience with the king on Thursday was Warisan president Mohd Shafie Apdal.
The Sabah-based party president left the palace without speaking to reporters.
The king’s meetings with leaders of major political leaders will continue on Friday with United Malays National Organisation president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi expected to be granted an audience in the afternoon.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Democratic Action Party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and Parti Amanah Negara president Mohamad Sabu were present at the palace on Wednesday, after the king had a pre-Cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in the morning.
It was widely speculated that the political landscape would be among the meeting agenda, but the politicians told the media that the discussions revolved around COVID-19 and parliament sitting which is currently suspended due to the state of emergency.
Mr Anwar said he pleaded for the king to not extend the state of emergency, while Mr Mohamad said he requested for parliament to reconvene.
In a statement, the palace said the king’s meeting with Mr Muhyiddin was a routine discussion on government affairs and issues.
In January, the king had declared a state of emergency across the nation to curb the spread of COVID-19. It is set to end on Aug 1 or earlier depending on the state of the pandemic.
Opposition MPs and activists set up a Committee for Ending the Emergency Declaration in March and launched a petition to appeal for an end to the state of emergency.
Mr Muhyiddin, who is under pressure from the opposition parties as well as coalition partners to prove the parliamentary support he commands, has reiterated that he would advise the king to dissolve parliament once the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.
Malaysia is currently under renewed movement restrictions as record high daily new infections and deaths were recorded.
SINGAPORE: Eighteen months into the pandemic, we have multiple COVID-19 vaccines available. This is cause for great optimism.
Scientific trials have shown that several have efficacies well above the minimum 50 per cent required by the World Health Organization (WHO). Some, like the mRNA vaccines used in Singapore, have efficacies above 90 per cent.
The amount of information on these vaccines, however, is also a source of confusion. Studies show that, given the choice, people prefer vaccines with a higher vaccine efficacy number and fewer side effects. Media reports interpreting the latest findings from vaccine studies have understandably led the public to compare which vaccines are safer and which offer better protection.
Unfortunately, the scientific community has not communicated clearly what vaccine efficacy means. Therefore, there is misunderstanding about how much protection different vaccines provide and their implications for people deciding whether to get vaccinated.
To get an insight on how the public interprets vaccine efficacy, we polled Facebook users in Singapore to see what they thought vaccine efficacy meant.
Results from a poll of Facebook users asked the question: “If a vaccine has 95% efficacy, what does this mean to you?” (Graphic: Authors)
Only a quarter of users identified the accurate interpretation – if vaccine efficacy is 95 per cent, your chances of getting COVID-19 will be 95 per cent lower if you are vaccinated than if you are not.
Instead, most people are under the impression that if you get vaccinated, you still have a 5 per cent chance of getting COVID-19.
This suggests that many people have an inflated sense of their risk of COVID-19 if they get vaccinated, and this could undermine confidence in how much benefit these vaccines provide.
This misinterpretation is understandable – what most people want to know is how likely they are to get COVID-19 if they get vaccinated.
But this is not exactly what vaccine efficacy measures. Your chances of getting COVID-19 depend not just on how good the vaccine is, but also on how much virus is circulating in the population and other factors that affect your risk of COVID-19.
These factors include your age, if you have underlying medical conditions, if you work in a high-risk job, how much social interaction you have and your mask-wearing and hand hygiene practices.
Vaccine trials do not generally account for all of these social and lifestyle factors, so they provide limited information about your individual risk of contracting COVID-19.
We can illustrate the idea of vaccine efficacy with an example from a scientific trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, currently used in Singapore.
In that trial, around 36,000 people were randomly split into two groups. Half received two doses of the vaccine, while the other half got two doses of an identical-looking but inactive placebo injection. Everyone was then observed for about six weeks to see who developed COVID-19.
In the 18,000-strong control group who received the placebo injection, there were 169 symptomatic COVID-19 cases over the six weeks. This equates to a risk of getting COVID-19 of about 90 cases for every 10,000 unvaccinated people for this period.
In contrast, in the 18,000 vaccinated individuals, there were only eight symptomatic COVID-19 cases, or about four cases for every 10,000 vaccinated people.
This means that among vaccinated people, the chances of getting symptomatic COVID-19 were about 20 times lower, or 5 per cent of the risk compared to people who got the placebo injection.
Consequently, the vaccine has an efficacy of 95 per cent, because in vaccinated people it reduces the risk of getting symptomatic COVID-19 by 95 per cent compared to unvaccinated people. But it does not mean that 5 per cent of those who got the vaccine went on to get COVID-19.
To date, the risk of getting COVID-19 in Singapore has been very low. Over 2020, before vaccination began, there were about 2,400 community cases in a population of around 5.4 million people living in the community. So for a resident in Singapore, the chances of getting COVID-19 in 2020 were about 1 in 2,250.
A medical worker prepares a syringe at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination center in Singapore. (FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Edgar Su)
Had the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines been available then, getting vaccinated would have reduced this risk by about 20 times, to around one in every 50,000 vaccinated individuals.
Recent increases in community cases mean your risk of getting COVID-19 is currently somewhat higher, but getting vaccinated will still drastically reduce your chances of getting COVID-19.
COMPARING EFFICACIES ACROSS VACCINES CHALLENGING
There has been much interest in which vaccines have better efficacy. Yet, comparing efficacy numbers for different vaccines is not straightforward.
Trials of different vaccines were done in different countries with varying levels of virus transmission, at different time points in the epidemic and with different virus variants circulating.
The trials were also done with different groups of volunteers – some included older adults, while others included mostly younger people who tend to have milder illness. And different trials diagnosed COVID-19 in slightly different ways.
All these influence the estimated efficacy. It is also important to note that headline vaccine efficacy numbers indicate the level of protection against any symptomatic COVID-19 disease.
For the majority of individuals, COVID-19 is relatively mild, so it is more important to know how well these vaccines protect against severe disease.
The evidence so far is that most of the vaccines available are highly effective for preventing COVID-19 hospitalisation and death, even if some vaccines provide better protection against milder disease.
UNDERSTANDING THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE VACCINES
It is important to interpret vaccine efficacy figures in relation to how much virus transmission is currently happening. The current low levels of transmission put Singapore in an advantageous position.
With rapid scaling up of vaccination, we can drastically reduce the COVID-19 risk in the population and maintain it at a low level even as we ease other social distancing measures.
But for this to work, we need a very high uptake of vaccination in the population.
Recent surveys in March suggest that a third of adults are unwilling or still unsure about whether to get vaccinated. So there is still work to do to communicate the benefits of vaccination, address public concerns and reduce hesitation.
A student receives a shot at a COVID-19 vaccination centre for students on Jun 3, 2021. (Photo: Facebook/Ministry of Education)
The Singapore Government is also taking other steps to improve the vaccination take-up rates.
They recently announced that the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, usually given within three to four weeks, would be delayed to six to eight weeks. This will allow more people to receive their first dose earlier.
Alternatives to mRNA vaccines will also be made available through the special access route. This will provide vaccination options for people who cannot receive the mRNA vaccines, including those with severe allergies.
With more options available, people may wonder if it is prudent to mix and match vaccines, for example, because of a belief that taking two different vaccines gives better protection, or because of an unpleasant reaction to the first dose of a mRNA vaccine.
It is not recommended to mix and match vaccines unless medically advised, because we currently do not have any information on how much protection this would provide. Different vaccines are designed and tested using specific dosing schedules and regimens.
Doses of alternative vaccines, such as Sinovac, will be limited and it is important that we reserve these for those who need them for medical reasons.
(Are COVID-19 vaccines still effective against new variants? And could these increase the risk of reinfection? Experts explain why COVID-19 could become a “chronic problem" on CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast.)
QUESTIONS REGARDING VACCINATION TO BE TACKLED
The science of COVID-19 vaccines is indeed evolving constantly as we accumulate more information from large-scale vaccination programmes and the emergence of new variants.
For example, it is too early to know how much protection these vaccines will provide against more recent variants, such as the Delta (B16172) variant currently causing global concern, or how long vaccine protection will last.
But vaccination remains overwhelmingly the best way to reduce your individual risk of COVID-19. It is also currently the only viable way to navigate a safe relaxation of control measures while minimising the risk of large epidemics.
This is not to say that vaccination will drive out the virus completely. As we open up our borders and ease restrictions, we need to accept that the risk of introducing the virus into the community will increase and cases will continue to occur.
Having a large fraction of the population vaccinated will vastly improve our chances of managing these clusters without spiralling epidemics overrunning our healthcare facilities, and without having to implement repeated lockdowns.
Dr Clarence Tam is an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health under the National University of Singapore.
Dr Hannah Clapham is an assistant professor at the same school.
Dr Yung Chee Fu is a senior infectious disease consultant at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School.
SINGAPORE: Eighteen months into the pandemic, we have multiple COVID-19 vaccines available. This is cause for great optimism.
Scientific trials have shown that several have efficacies well above the minimum 50 per cent required by the World Health Organization (WHO). Some, like the mRNA vaccines used in Singapore, have efficacies above 90 per cent.
The amount of information on these vaccines, however, is also a source of confusion. Studies show that, given the choice, people prefer vaccines with a higher vaccine efficacy number and fewer side effects. Media reports interpreting the latest findings from vaccine studies have understandably led the public to compare which vaccines are safer and which offer better protection.
Unfortunately, the scientific community has not communicated clearly what vaccine efficacy means. Therefore, there is misunderstanding about how much protection different vaccines provide and their implications for people deciding whether to get vaccinated.
To get an insight on how the public interprets vaccine efficacy, we polled Facebook users in Singapore to see what they thought vaccine efficacy meant.
Results from a poll of Facebook users asked the question: “If a vaccine has 95% efficacy, what does this mean to you?” (Graphic: Authors)
Only a quarter of users identified the accurate interpretation – if vaccine efficacy is 95 per cent, your chances of getting COVID-19 will be 95 per cent lower if you are vaccinated than if you are not.
Instead, most people are under the impression that if you get vaccinated, you still have a 5 per cent chance of getting COVID-19.
This suggests that many people have an inflated sense of their risk of COVID-19 if they get vaccinated, and this could undermine confidence in how much benefit these vaccines provide.
This misinterpretation is understandable – what most people want to know is how likely they are to get COVID-19 if they get vaccinated.
But this is not exactly what vaccine efficacy measures. Your chances of getting COVID-19 depend not just on how good the vaccine is, but also on how much virus is circulating in the population and other factors that affect your risk of COVID-19.
These factors include your age, if you have underlying medical conditions, if you work in a high-risk job, how much social interaction you have and your mask-wearing and hand hygiene practices.
Vaccine trials do not generally account for all of these social and lifestyle factors, so they provide limited information about your individual risk of contracting COVID-19.
We can illustrate the idea of vaccine efficacy with an example from a scientific trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, currently used in Singapore.
In that trial, around 36,000 people were randomly split into two groups. Half received two doses of the vaccine, while the other half got two doses of an identical-looking but inactive placebo injection. Everyone was then observed for about six weeks to see who developed COVID-19.
In the 18,000-strong control group who received the placebo injection, there were 169 symptomatic COVID-19 cases over the six weeks. This equates to a risk of getting COVID-19 of about 90 cases for every 10,000 unvaccinated people for this period.
In contrast, in the 18,000 vaccinated individuals, there were only eight symptomatic COVID-19 cases, or about four cases for every 10,000 vaccinated people.
This means that among vaccinated people, the chances of getting symptomatic COVID-19 were about 20 times lower, or 5 per cent of the risk compared to people who got the placebo injection.
Consequently, the vaccine has an efficacy of 95 per cent, because in vaccinated people it reduces the risk of getting symptomatic COVID-19 by 95 per cent compared to unvaccinated people. But it does not mean that 5 per cent of those who got the vaccine went on to get COVID-19.
To date, the risk of getting COVID-19 in Singapore has been very low. Over 2020, before vaccination began, there were about 2,400 community cases in a population of around 5.4 million people living in the community. So for a resident in Singapore, the chances of getting COVID-19 in 2020 were about 1 in 2,250.
A medical worker prepares a syringe at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination center in Singapore. (FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Edgar Su)
Had the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines been available then, getting vaccinated would have reduced this risk by about 20 times, to around one in every 50,000 vaccinated individuals.
Recent increases in community cases mean your risk of getting COVID-19 is currently somewhat higher, but getting vaccinated will still drastically reduce your chances of getting COVID-19.
COMPARING EFFICACIES ACROSS VACCINES CHALLENGING
There has been much interest in which vaccines have better efficacy. Yet, comparing efficacy numbers for different vaccines is not straightforward.
Trials of different vaccines were done in different countries with varying levels of virus transmission, at different time points in the epidemic and with different virus variants circulating.
The trials were also done with different groups of volunteers – some included older adults, while others included mostly younger people who tend to have milder illness. And different trials diagnosed COVID-19 in slightly different ways.
All these influence the estimated efficacy. It is also important to note that headline vaccine efficacy numbers indicate the level of protection against any symptomatic COVID-19 disease.
For the majority of individuals, COVID-19 is relatively mild, so it is more important to know how well these vaccines protect against severe disease.
The evidence so far is that most of the vaccines available are highly effective for preventing COVID-19 hospitalisation and death, even if some vaccines provide better protection against milder disease.
UNDERSTANDING THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE VACCINES
It is important to interpret vaccine efficacy figures in relation to how much virus transmission is currently happening. The current low levels of transmission put Singapore in an advantageous position.
With rapid scaling up of vaccination, we can drastically reduce the COVID-19 risk in the population and maintain it at a low level even as we ease other social distancing measures.
But for this to work, we need a very high uptake of vaccination in the population.
Recent surveys in March suggest that a third of adults are unwilling or still unsure about whether to get vaccinated. So there is still work to do to communicate the benefits of vaccination, address public concerns and reduce hesitation.
A student receives a shot at a COVID-19 vaccination centre for students on Jun 3, 2021. (Photo: Facebook/Ministry of Education)
The Singapore Government is also taking other steps to improve the vaccination take-up rates.
They recently announced that the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, usually given within three to four weeks, would be delayed to six to eight weeks. This will allow more people to receive their first dose earlier.
Alternatives to mRNA vaccines will also be made available through the special access route. This will provide vaccination options for people who cannot receive the mRNA vaccines, including those with severe allergies.
With more options available, people may wonder if it is prudent to mix and match vaccines, for example, because of a belief that taking two different vaccines gives better protection, or because of an unpleasant reaction to the first dose of a mRNA vaccine.
It is not recommended to mix and match vaccines unless medically advised, because we currently do not have any information on how much protection this would provide. Different vaccines are designed and tested using specific dosing schedules and regimens.
Doses of alternative vaccines, such as Sinovac, will be limited and it is important that we reserve these for those who need them for medical reasons.
(Are COVID-19 vaccines still effective against new variants? And could these increase the risk of reinfection? Experts explain why COVID-19 could become a “chronic problem" on CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast.)
QUESTIONS REGARDING VACCINATION TO BE TACKLED
The science of COVID-19 vaccines is indeed evolving constantly as we accumulate more information from large-scale vaccination programmes and the emergence of new variants.
For example, it is too early to know how much protection these vaccines will provide against more recent variants, such as the Delta (B16172) variant currently causing global concern, or how long vaccine protection will last.
But vaccination remains overwhelmingly the best way to reduce your individual risk of COVID-19. It is also currently the only viable way to navigate a safe relaxation of control measures while minimising the risk of large epidemics.
This is not to say that vaccination will drive out the virus completely. As we open up our borders and ease restrictions, we need to accept that the risk of introducing the virus into the community will increase and cases will continue to occur.
Having a large fraction of the population vaccinated will vastly improve our chances of managing these clusters without spiralling epidemics overrunning our healthcare facilities, and without having to implement repeated lockdowns.
Dr Clarence Tam is an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health under the National University of Singapore.
Dr Hannah Clapham is an assistant professor at the same school.
Dr Yung Chee Fu is a senior infectious disease consultant at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School.
OTTAWA: Canada will soon unveil measures to crack down on online extremism following the killing of a Muslim family, a crime that police said was inspired by hate, a government minister said on Wednesday (Jun 9).
Four members of the family were killed on Sunday when a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran them over in London, Ontario, 200km southwest of Toronto. A 20-year-man has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
"Our government is continuing to do what is necessary, obviously working with the social media platforms, to combat online hate and we'll have more to say on specific measures in the coming weeks," Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc told a news conference. He did not give details.
There is no evidence that the suspect, Nathaniel Veltman, had any connection to hate groups.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, facing complaints from religious and ethnic communities that Ottawa has not done enough to combat bigotry and racism, promised on Tuesday to intensify efforts to fight far-right groups, in part by cracking down on online extremism.
"We don't yet know all the causes or reasons, but there is probably an element of online incitation to violence," Trudeau told a virtual conference on digital governance on Wednesday.
In January, he asked Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault to work with Public Safety Minister Bill Blair "to take action on combating hate groups and online hate." Neither minister's office was immediately available for comment.
Guilbeault has said for months that legislation to address online hate is coming. But even if the government introduces a Bill, it has no chance of being adopted by Parliament before legislators rise for their summer break later this month.
In February, Canada named the far-right Proud Boys a terrorist entity, saying it posed an active security threat.
Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor and security expert at Ottawa's Carleton University, said the most likely option in the short term was to ban more extremist organisations.
"The problem with targeting these ideologically motivated violent extremist groups is that they just resurface," she said by phone, calling for policies to target the far-right movement as a whole.
Another important element was addressing the role played by social media platforms and ensuring they adhere to their own policies on various kinds of hate speech, she said.
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Wednesday (Jun 9) revoked executive orders from his predecessor Donald Trump seeking to ban Chinese-owned mobile apps TikTok and WeChat over national security concerns, the White House said.
A statement said that instead of banning the popular apps, the Biden administration would carry out a "criteria-based decision framework and rigorous, evidence-based analysis to address the risks" from Internet applications controlled by foreign entities.
Trump had claimed the apps posed national security risks and had sought to force the sale of TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance and remains one of the world's most popular social media apps, to US investors.
The effort by the Trump administration prompted a series of legal challenges which delayed the efforts to ban or force the sale of the applications, which heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.
There was no immediate comment from the two companies.
Biden issued a new executive order citing an "ongoing emergency" related to "the continuing effort of foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons' data" and calling for a four-month review.
University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney, who follows national security issues, called the Biden order "a good middle path".
"They affirmed the nature of the threat and the propriety of using sanctions to address it, and they have held the door open for reimposing some version of these sanctions ... but likely with a far stronger and more defensible record," Chesney tweeted.
But officials said that Biden's order stopped short of rescinding a review of the 2017 acquisition of TikTok forerunner Musical.ly by ByteDance.
"It would be premature to celebrate; Bytedance remains subject to an entirely separate CFIUS divestment order," Chesney said in a blog post, referring to the intergovernmental Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is carrying out the review.
"Today's action by President Biden does nothing to change that. Of course, it could be that this too will change," he added.
FINDING 'UNACCEPTABLE RISKS'
Biden's order seeks to identify any "connected software applications that may pose an unacceptable risk to US national security and the American people" including "applications that are owned, controlled, or managed by persons that support foreign adversary military or intelligence activities, or are involved in malicious cyber activities, or involve applications that collect sensitive personal data."
The new order calls for the Commerce Department and other federal agencies to develop guidelines "to protect sensitive personal data ... including personally identifiable information and genetic information" from misuse.
TikTok is believed to have some one billion users worldwide including more than 100 million in the United States, and is especially popular with young smartphone users.
Last September, US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary injunction at the request of TikTok blocking the effort to ban downloads of the app in the United States.
Trump had given his blessing to a plan that would have given TikTok to US tech giant Oracle with investments from retail powerhouse Walmart, but that deal failed to win approval in Beijing.
WeChat, part of the Chinese tech giant Tencent, is a massively popular "super app" which includes social networking, messaging, e-commerce and more.
The ban on WeChat was also delayed by a lawsuit from users based in the United States claiming the ban infringed on their rights.
The Biden move comes a day after the US Senate passed a sweeping industrial policy bill aimed at countering the surging economic threat from China and pumping more than US$170 billion into research and development.
The package, a key provision of which addresses a shortage of semiconductors that has slowed US auto production this year, will help American industry bolster its capacity and improve technology, in an effort to avoid being outmanoeuvred by Beijing as the adversaries compete for tech leadership.
SINGAPORE: Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison will make an official visit to Singapore on Thursday (Jun 10) for a leaders’ meeting with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Mr Lee will meet Mr Morrison at the Istana, and the pair will hold a virtual joint press conference after the meeting, said MFA on Wednesday.
This is the sixth Singapore-Australia Leaders’ Meeting between the two countries. Mr Lee and Morrison held their previous meeting in March last year by video conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Morrison's trip to Singapore will be the first official visit by a foreign leader since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visitors from Australia, except Victoria state, are allowed to enter Singapore with a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test at the airport, in lieu of a stay-home notice that applies to most other countries.
Australian media have reported that no exemption has been made for Mr Morrison, but that his aides have been investigating how the process can be fast-tracked and whether Mr Morrison can instead undergo an antigen rapid test (ART).
Test results from ART tests take typically around 30 minutes, but it can take up to 48 hours for PCR tests, as the samples have to be sent to laboratories to be tested.
Both Mr Lee and Mr Morrison are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Leaders’ Meeting was established under the Singapore-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the Prime Ministers of Singapore and Australia to meet annually to discuss bilateral cooperation and exchange views on regional and international developments.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed in March that Australia and Singapore were in talks on a possible travel bubble that would allow residents to travel between both countries without having to quarantine.
The two countries were also in discussions on the mutual recognition of vaccination certificates and resuming travel with priority for students and business travellers, MFA said in response to media queries at the time.
Singapore has already opened its border to some countries including Australia, and officials have said the country would like to establish reciprocal travel corridors.
Australia closed its borders to non-nationals and non-residents in March last year and has since been allowing only limited international arrivals, mainly citizens returning from abroad.
It also has a quarantine-free travel arrangement with New Zealand, although the scheme has been suspended several times in response to virus outbreaks.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said on Wednesday (Jun 9) after a royal audience that he has pleaded for the king to not extend the state of emergency in the country.
Speaking to reporters after leaving the palace, he noted that when the ruling coalition first proposed enacting a state of emergency, King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah did not accept the suggestion. The ruler had only agreed after Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin raised the issue for a second time.
“We have voiced our opinion that continuation of the emergency will result in losses to the country, not help in the management of COVID-19 and will affect the economy especially for the rakyat (people) in the lower-income groups," Mr Anwar said.
"We see that all the steps that can be done to help the situation do not require the state of emergency. So we pleaded with the king to prevent the continuation of the emergency as much as possible.”
Mr Anwar added that it was right for the king to say that he has enacted the state of emergency to comply with the spirit of the constitutional monarchy and in accordance with the prime minister’s advice.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat president also touched on the issue of parliamentary sitting, which has been suspended since the declaration of emergency.
He noted that the king had earlier indicated that the parliament may convene on an appropriate date, based on the advice of the prime minister. Despite this, parliament has not been convened, he said.
"There are varying perceptions as though these things are not done,” Mr Anwar said.
When asked by reporters on whether there was any discussion on the formation of a new government, Mr Anwar said: “That is a matter that does not arise for now.”
Malaysian King Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah (right) grants an audience to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Jun 9, 2021. (Photo: Facebook/Istana Negara)
In a Facebook post, the palace said the meeting lasted an hour. "The pre-Cabinet meeting is among the weekly activities or main routine of Al-Sultan Abdullah to discuss and exchange views with the prime minister on government affairs and issues," it said.
Other political leaders also received an invitation to meet the ruler. Amanah's president Mohamad Sabu and Democratic Action Party's secretary-general Lim Guan Eng were both at the palace on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Lim told reporters after the meeting that the king is very concerned about the COVID-19 crisis and its economic impacts on people.
"His Majesty is the hope now. Because parliament is now not sitting, there is no space for the people to voice their issues," he said.
"We also hope ... that they get assistance, especially in terms of economic assistance ... and the vaccination aspect, which should be speeded up to all people in Malaysia."
According to media reports, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is the chairman of Parti Pejuang Tanah Air, would be called for an audience with the king on Thursday, while Parti Islam Se-Malaysia confirmed that its president Abdul Hadi Awang had received the invitation letter on Jun 4.
Prior to the Wednesday meetings, it was reported that discussions on the current political landscape and the COVID-19 situation were are likely to be on the agenda.
In January, the king had declared a state of emergency across the nation to curb the spread of COVID-19. It is set to end on Aug 1 or earlier depending on the state of the pandemic.
Opposition MPs and activists set up a Committee for Ending the Emergency Declaration in March and launched a petition to appeal for an end to the state of emergency.
A general view of Malaysia's parliament issued by the Department of Information AFP/KHIRUL NIZAM ZANIL
Mr Muhyiddin, who is under pressure from the opposition parties as well as coalition partners to prove the parliamentary support he commands, has reiterated that he would advise the king to dissolve parliament once the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.
Malaysia is currently under renewed movement restrictions as record high daily new infections and deaths were recorded.
A statement issued by the national palace on Wednesday afternoon said the king will hold a special meeting with the other Malay rulers on Jun 16.
The meeting is related to Malaysia's efforts to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its implementation during the state of emergency, said the statement.
The special meeting is the second of its kind held at the national palace since Sultan Abdullah ascended the throne in January 2019. The first meeting was held on October 25, 2020 at the national palace.
Additional reporting by Vincent Tan and Amir Yusof.
