KUALA LUMPUR – DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang questioned whether the country would see up to 25,000 daily cases within February due to the Omicron variant after yesterday breached the 10,000.
In a statement today, the Gelang Patah MP said that a public health expert had advised him that the daily Covid-19 numbers could rise to the 20,000-25,000 range in the next three to four weeks.
“Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said yesterday that the Omicron wave will reach a daily caseload of 15,000 new cases ‘soon’.
“Health Director-General Tan Sri Noor Hisham Abdullah warned that daily Covid-19 cases could hit 22,000 by the end of March.
“This boils down to whether the Omicron variant will set a new peak of daily infections exceeding 25,000 cases a day,” he said.
Lim opined that while daily cases may have breached the 10,000 mark, it does not mean that the state of Covid-19 healthcare has reverted to five months ago when the nation last recorded five-figure numbers.
“This is seen in the mortality numbers on October 2, 2021, when there were 109 Covid-19 deaths, compared with yesterday, which recorded nine deaths.
“On October 2, we were on the descent from the peak of the third Covid-19 wave in Malaysia at 24,588 infections on August 26, 2021, and 592 deaths on September 11, 2021.
“The Covid-19 cases and deaths were all of the Delta variant,” he said.
Lim however pointed out that the dominant variant at present for fresh cases is Omicron, which is more transmissible but not as severe or deadly, as seen by yesterday’s numbers – 10,089 infections, but nine deaths.
“Although cases have been increasing this past week, there has been no surge in intensive care unit admissions or mortality rates.
“For comparison, South Korea reported 38,670 (15 deaths), Indonesia 36,057 (57 deaths), Thailand 10,879 (20 deaths), the Philippines 8,361 (312 deaths), Australia 22,839 (45 deaths) and Singapore 7,752 (three deaths).”
Despite the lower death rates, Lim said, Malaysia had proven to be one of the worst-performing nations globally, occupying the top 20 for cumulative Covid-19 case totals in the last quarter of 2021.
He said this was despite the country being ranked 18th under the Global Health Security Index and regarded as best positioned to deal with pandemic diseases in 2019.
“It is something to celebrate that in the new year of 2022, Malaysia has slipped eight places and fallen to 28th in ranking for nations with the most cumulative Covid-19 cases, which is led by the United States with 78 million cases and over 925,000 deaths.
“The global figures are nearly 396 million in cumulative cases and nearly 5.8 million deaths.
“With 2,914,220 cases and 32,034 deaths, Malaysia has fallen to 28th for nations with the most cumulative Covid-19 cases, losing out to Peru, Belgium, Czechia, Japan, Israel, Canada, and Portugal,” he said, adding that despite the rising number of cases at present, he hopes to see Malaysia fall lower in the rankings. – The Vibes, February 7, 2022
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