Covid-19: Daily new cases are exceeding infection forecasts

 

For the past week, the daily number of Covid-19 cases have continued to exceed forecasts of infections due to members of the public not complying with social distancing rules.

This comes as the national infectivity rate continued to climb yesterday, to 1.14. New cases over the past few weeks even exceeded the forecast of numbers for 'non-compliance to SOP' (see above chart in red).

An infectivity rate or R-naught (R0) of 1.14 indicates that the outbreak is growing.

A rate of 1.0 implies an outbreak is neither declining nor increasing.

The infectivity rate of 10 states and territories are currently above 1, namely Sabah, Sarawak, Perlis, Terengganu, Kelantan, Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Putrajaya, and Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, Selangor and Malacca's infectivity rate dropped to 0.98 and 0.91 respectively yesterday, from more than 1.0 on April 13.

It was previously forecast that the country should start reporting less than 1,000 new cases per day by mid-April if the R-naught goes down to 0.8 due to SOP compliance.

However, daily new cases are now nearing 2,000 per day - with 1,889 new infections reported yesterday.

The numbers of active cases have also been steadily increasing as new cases outpace recoveries.

Previous forecasts expected that if the infectivity rate increases to 1.2, daily cases could go up to above 2,000 per day in mid-May.

However, this could come sooner if cases continue to exceed forecasts for non-compliance. - Mkini