KUALA LUMPUR – The spike in Covid-19 infections brought by the Omicron variant will unlikely overwhelm hospitals due to the high vaccination rate, said a public health expert.
Dr Sanjay Rampal, a specialist on public health medicine and professor of epidemiology at Universiti Malaya’s Social and Preventive Medicine Department, said while Omicron cases will overtake those from the Delta variant, it will not see as many instances of severe infections as the latter.
“One of the reasons why we (Malaysia's public health system) can tolerate so many more cases is the successful implementation of the Covid-19 immunisation programme. There’s no running away from that,” he said during an interview on Astro Awani’s Consider This Segment with Melisa Idris and Sharaad Kuttan.
Also present was former deputy director-general for public health Datuk Dr Lokman Hakim who warned that although Omicron does not lead to serious cases for most infections, controlling numbers is still important as severe cases will increase in proportion to the total number of daily transmissions.
Dr Sanjay was asked whether he believed Omicron’s rise means Delta will be wiped out from the country as predicted by the government.
On Sunday, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia has been fully hit by the Omicron wave, adding that the number of daily Covid-19 cases is expected to hit 15,000 soon.
This came after Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the country could see 22,000 cases a day by the end of March if the infectivity rate maintains at 1.2.
During a press conference yesterday, Khairy said the Omicron wave would subside in the next one to two months, adding that movement restrictions are not expected during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri period in May.
However, Dr Sanjay appeared more optimistic on daily figures, noting that the baseline level for infections during the rise of the Delta variant last year hovered around 4,000 to 5,000 cases daily.
Being twice as infectious, Omicron’s baseline case level in its peak is expected to be around the 8,000 to 10,000 mark, Dr Sanjay said.
“It does not represent an outbreak. To me, a real wave would be up to 50,000 daily, and we would reach surge capacity once it is higher than 50,000 daily cases, (which is) between 60,000 and 80,000 cases.
“The primary vaccination programme did a lot. It decreased the severity of Omicron in a vaccinated population, compared with Delta in an unvaccinated population."
Dr Sanjay said based on trajectories, he believed 8,000 to 10,000 cases per day may be the “new normal”, although it was still too early to tell.
However, he said certain extraneous factors such as mass gatherings could accelerate or exponentiate the increase of infections.
He added that if this happens, it could overwhelm the country’s public health capacity to control the disease.
“That’s when we will have a surge and exponentiation in daily cases, that would then be followed by a high need for primary care.”
However, he said even with 50,000 cases, the number of Category 4 or 5 infections would require an additional 750 intensive care beds.
He added that this was why the Health Ministry must examine its reserve capacity and make proper preparations. – The Vibes, February 8, 2022
