A total of 20 COVID-19 clusters have been recorded in the education sector to date, from March 20.

Revealing this yesterday, Health Minister Dr Adham Baba said the highest number of infections came from the Paloh Rambai cluster in Kelantan, which involves at least 20 teachers from several schools in the state.

COVID-19 cases were also detected at education institutions in Johor, Sabah, Negeri Sembilan, and Sarawak, he added.

"The spread of the virus (in the education sector) were through colleagues or social contact," Bernama quoted the minister telling a press conference yesterday.

Meanwhile, the New Straits Times (NST) reported Adham saying that the ministry is yet to decide on letting those who have been fully vaccinated to travel interstate, as had been mentioned by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin recently.

"We have yet to receive concrete evidence from the Centre of Disease Control and the World Health Organisation on whether those who have gotten their second dose have achieved immunity, and can be allowed to safely travel. We expect to get the data soon."

Last week, Muhyiddin said that Putrajaya is mulling allowing Malaysians who have received two doses of their COVID-19 vaccinations, to travel interstate, and overseas, by presenting their digital vaccination certificates to the authorities.

To date, more than 700,000 people have been vaccinated in the country.

The second phase of the national vaccination programme, involving senior citizens and those with chronic illnesses, is set to kick off on Apr 17 - earlier than originally scheduled.

The third group, involving some 13.7 million citizens and non-citizens aged 18 and above, are set to receive their jabs from May this year to February next year.

As of yesterday, there have been a total of 352,029 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, with 1,295 deaths.

Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 132 million people, and killed over 2.87 million.


Source: Bernama, NST
Photo source: Astro Awani