Health DG: MCO 2.0 prevented cases from spiraling before social sectors re-opened

 

The second movement control order (MCO 2.0) succeeded in preventing Covid-19 cases in the country from breaching five digits, said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the number of cases also started declining for six weeks after the MCO 2.0 was implemented.

However, he said at a critical point in early March, several sectors including social, education, religion and sports were re-opened, after which case numbers began to rise again.

"The sectors were allowed to open with one condition, that SOPs were abided by," said Noor Hisham at his first press conference in two months.

Noor Hisham said if SOPs had been adhered to, Malaysia would have been on track to have only double-digit cases by May.

Instead, the case numbers rose and followed a trajectory of SOPs not adhered to.

"Maybe there was mental fatigue to comply with the SOPs," he said.

He added that neighbouring countries also started recording an uptick in cases in March, believed to be due to new variants of Covid-19.

Since then, Covid-19 cases in Malaysia have been spiralling, recording over 4,000 cases in the last two days.

Noor Hisham said two Covid-19 variants of concern which were first detected in the UK and South Africa, were already in the local community.

He said there have been 48 local cases of the South African variant, including in five clusters.

The UK variant has also been detected with three local cases.

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said there has also been an increase in sporadic cases, compared to cases from clusters. Of the 48, two have died.

The health director-general said there was also one case in Negeri Sembilan of a former Covid-19 patient who was infected in April 2020 and who was re-infected with the South African variant recently.

This is one of three re-infections on record in the country. In the other two cases in Sungai Buloh, both patients who were re-infected also caught a new strain of the virus.

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said the UK variant had been detected in three local cases.

He also said there has been an increase in sporadic cases compared to cases from clusters.

"What are sporadic cases? It means we don't know what was the source of infection," he said.

With the way things are now, he said Malaysia may record up to 5,000 cases of Covid-19 by mid-May if SOPs were not complied with.

Hence, he stressed that the people must not be complacent in complying with the SOPs.

"Complacency breeds failure," he said.

He said the Health Ministry was also advising the National Security Council to be more strict with the social, education and sports sectors, in order to curb the spread of this deadly disease. - Mkini