KUALA LUMPUR – The Health Ministry has yet to see any community spread of Covid-19 in the Klang Valley despite the spike in infections involving foreign workers in two construction sites.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the ministry has not detected any cases involving individuals who were infected from being in the vicinity of the Damanlela construction site cluster.
“It (the Damanlela) cluster is mainly confined to the construction workers,” Dr Noor Hisham said during his daily press conference today.
“So, active case detections have been done and we will continue to do the screenings. Hopefully, we will contain the infection within the construction workers as soon as possible.”
Dr Noor Hisham said there are two large clusters involving construction sites in the Klang Valley.
The ministry recorded 385 cases from the Damanlela cluster and another 52 cases from the Merpati cluster near KLIA2.
The Damanlela cluster now has a total of 1,132 Covid-19 cases.
The ministry has also screened some 3,097 people and isolated the positive cases in hospitals, as well as put close contacts under quarantine.
He said although the index case of the Damanlela cluster was found after police made an arrest, the migrants involved are not undocumented workers.
He added the Damanlela site has been issued a stop-work order while sanitisation and more screenings are being conducted.
On the effectiveness of the conditional movement control order (CMCO) and whether he thought it was a failure owing to rising cases in Klang Valley, he said he did not consider it as a failed effort.
“This is an activity of public health intervention and public health measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.
“Whether it was MCO and CMCO options, we had to make a balance between health and economy, lives and livelihoods, so we adopted the CMCO. If we implemented the MCO, the impact on the economy is very high.”
He said he personally felt that stronger measures needed to be in place to curb Covid-19 in the Klang Valley.
“Certainly if you ask me, we would go all out for health and life, which is basically to implement MCO. But it is going to be very costly.
“Perhaps if you implement MCO and put everyone at home for two weeks we can break the chain of infections. But because there is still movement, that’s an issue, we hope that we can reduce movement.”
Dr Noor Hisham also said by September 20 when the third wave of infections struck, the infectivity rate was at 2.2 but it quickly went down to 1.5 as measures were put in place.
Now, one month since the CMCO was implemented in many areas, the rate was hovering between 0.9 and 1.1. He said the rate could go down to 0.5 in the next two weeks.
“We will not succeed if there is not cooperation from the public, they need to abide by the SOPs.
“If possible stay home. Social discipline is important in breaking the chain in our country. Countries that have succeeded in tackling Covid-19 all have a high level of discipline.” – The Vibes, November 16, 2020
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