PUTRAJAYA – Without the movement restrictions imposed in Malaysia, the country could be staring at 4,000 daily Covid-19 cases, Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told a special briefing today.
“On September 20, we saw an R-naught (R0) value of 2.2 at the beginning of the third wave. If no action had been taken, we would have seen positive cases spike up to 4,000 to 5,000 daily, and our hospitals would not be able to cope.
“In fact, a study by the Imperial College projected that Malaysia would see 4,000 cases daily starting November 10. Fortunately, that is not the case.”
He said currently, the country’s R0 (infectivity rate) value is hovering between 0.9 and 1.1 – a significant reduction from 2.2 on September 20.
Dr Noor Hisham attributed the reduction in the R0 value to the conditional movement control order (CMCO) imposed in several states, such as Selangor, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur.
He added the Health Ministry contemplated the imposition of a full movement control order (MCO) in the Klang Valley, but was unable to do so, given the fact that most of the nation’s economic activities occur there.
This is not the first time Dr Noor Hisham has brought up the issue. A few days ago, he reportedly expressed a similar sentiment during his daily briefing.
He had said efforts must be made by both the government and the people to ensure the R0 value drops to at least 0.5.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said Malaysia’s testing rate now is at 76.4 per 1,000 people, and has a positive detection rate of 2%.
“This is menial compared with the US, which is currently testing at a rate of 516.98 for every 1,000 people and records a 6.5% positive detection rate.
“In the end, it’s not about the amount of screenings that we do, but the number of people that test positive.”
The ministry will also ramp up its use of the Rapid Test Kits-Antigen (RTK-AG) in screenings. As of July 16, the accuracy rate of the tests has increased to 90%.
As of yesterday, 483,686 RTK-AG tests were used in Covid-19 screenings.
Dr Noor Hisham said there are 120 hospitals equipped to run Covid-19 tests, and 47 hospitals treating Covid-19 patients, while seven of those are only handling Covid-19 cases.
In total, the ministry is equipped with 17,541 beds for Covid-19 patients, 500 beds for intensive care and 1,553 ventilators. – The Vibes, November 21, 2020
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