KUALA LUMPUR – Categories 3 and high-risk 2b Covid-19 patients will no longer be allowed to undergo quarantine at home, amid an increase in the number of brought-in-dead (BID) cases over the past weeks.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the ministry today decided that the two groups will have to be admitted to government-designated low-risk quarantine and treatment centres (PKRCs) for observation.
“Upon a risk assessment, individuals in Categories 3 and 2b (high-risk Category 2) will be admitted to PKRCs,” he told a press conference here.
Previously, only Categories 4 and 5 patients – those with severe symptoms – were required to undergo quarantine at government centres.
However, with more BIDs in recent weeks, and with PKRC capacity showing improvement due to high vaccination rates nationwide, there have been calls for patients with mild symptoms and high-risk individuals to be admitted.
Khairy said for other asymptomatic patients and those with mild symptoms, states have been ordered to provide pulse oximeters to high-risk individuals, to allow for better monitoring.
Since the start of the pandemic last year until August, he said, there were a total of 2,417 BID cases.
Of this, only 14% of the victims were under medical observation by the ministry or private general practitioners, he said, adding: “86% were not under any supervision. So, to reduce BIDs, we must make sure that those undergoing home quarantine are monitored.
“We are deep-diving the cases that are not under any medical supervision to find out why, so we can better advise the public to get checked once they have any symptoms.” – The Vibes, September 9, 2021
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