DG: Low cumulative positive rate means Malaysia testing adequately

CORONAVIRUS | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has again assured that Malaysia is conducting adequate Covid-19 tests despite falling far below the daily maximum capacity.

During a media briefing this evening, he shared that Malaysia’s testing rate was 31.29 tests per 1,000 population as of Aug 7.

This was far behind Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the UK, and US.

As for daily test numbers, yesterday the country conducted 6,390 RT-PCR tests or 16.6 percent of the daily maximum capacity of 38,600.

Nevertheless, the top official pointed out that Malaysia’s cumulative positive rate was 0.9 percent. This meant that just 0.9 percent of all tests conducted were positive for Covid-19.

Since the World Health Organisation recommended more tests only if the cumulative positive rate was above 10 percent, Noor Hisham said Malaysia was testing adequately.

“Now our (daily testing) capacity no doubt is 38,600 but we need not do 38,600 (tests) every day,” he said, adding that Malaysia was “on the right course”.

“It is not (only) the number of tests that are important, but also the (rate of) positivity detected,” he explained.

The ministry is presently conducting pre-surgery RT-PCR screening to indicate how widespread the virus is in the community.

Noor Hisham said the cumulative positive rate from pre-surgery tests alone was 0.05 percent (44 positive cases) - another indicator that the virus was under control.

Not ready for international tourists

Meanwhile, he noted that Malaysia was not prepared to accept tourists from abroad just yet.

This is amidst ongoing talks with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Brunei on “travel bubbles” and bilateral standard operating procedure (SOP).

The ministry’s priority, Noor Hisham said, was containing locally transmitted Covid-19 cases before it would consider fully opening any borders.

“The moment we open up, we must look into the possibility that there is a risk of infection coming in from tourists, etc.

“Today we have opened up but they (travelers) must comply with the full SOP. For example, in the business community, when they come in, they have to comply with the SOP. But (we don’t allow) for the public yet, so we are looking into stages in how we open up our border.

“So far, I think we are not ready yet to open up our border, but discussion can carry on, and (we can) look into standardisation of the SOPs on both sides of countries,” he explained.

Recent weeks have seen several new Covid-19 clusters involving locally transmitted cases, namely the Sivagangga, Kurau, and Meranti clusters. - Mkini