How does Health Ministry plan its Covid-19 response?

 

COVID-19 | A lot of attention is placed on the daily number of new Covid-19 cases but there are other indicators that the Health Ministry considers when planning its response to the pandemic.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told Malaysiakini that ministry officials convene for a Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) meeting every morning to discuss the following six data points:

• Daily new cases
• Covid-19 fatality rate
• Infectivity (R0 and Rt)
• Hospital bed and intensive care unit (ICU) bed utilisation rate
• Number of medical frontliners infected and quarantined
• Number of RT-PCR and Antigen-based rapid test kit tests done

Of the six, daily new cases and fatality rates are published every day.

Noor Hisham discloses testing figures when he holds press conferences, which can be up to twice a week. He also shares infectivity rates with the media and on social media from time to time.

The ministry does not routinely publish bed utilisation rates or the number of infected healthcare workers but does provide data upon request. 

Community infections

Aside from these six indicators, the top official said ministry officials also look at the number of community infections that are not found to be linked to any cluster. 

These infections include cases detected among those with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (Sari).

They also include infections detected from hospital admission and pre-operation tests. Pre-admission tests are conducted at hospitals located in red zones (districts with over 40 active Covid-19 cases).

“These are some indicators to help us target our activities and make projections,” Noor Hisham said.

After reviewing the daily numbers and recent trends, the CPRC will make recommendations to the executive.

Final decisions are then made by the National Security Council (NSC) and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. 

In its latest projection, the ministry forecasted that daily new cases would remain under 4,000 for the next month if infectivity (Rt) remains at 1.1.

However, if the Rt jumps to 1.2, daily new cases could hit 10,000 by the second week of March.

Noor Hisham said yesterday that Malaysia has finally turned the corner in its fight against Covid-19 after hitting a peak of 5,298 daily new infections on Jan 31.

As of Feb 9, new cases numbered 2,764 and the Rt was 0.91.

He said he expects cases to continue to fall and targeted an Rt of 0.6. - Mkini