Omicron fears: Malaysia suspends vaccinated travel lane with Singapore

Kuala Lumpur, Dec 22 Malaysia and Singapore have agreed to suspend the sale of flight and bus tickets for the vaccinated travel lane (VTL) after a cluster of possible cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was detected in Singapore, Malaysia's Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said on Wednesday.

The suspension will run from December 23 to January 20 next year, Khairy said in a statement following Singapore's announcement of the same measure, Xinhua news agency reported.

Khairy said the cluster in Singapore involved three Covid infections. "All three cases did not have any travel history to foreign countries," he said.

The VTL kicked off on November 29 and involved travel via the bridge connecting Malaysia to Singapore as well as an air corridor. The bridge link, or causeway, was one of the busiest crossing points in the world with a daily flow of hundreds of thousands of people in both directions before the pandemic.

Some restrictions were eased as part of the VTL including quarantine requirements being waived for fully vaccinated individuals.