Covid-19 infectivity in Sabah briefly exceeded Malaysia's pre-MCO levels

COVID-19 | The infectivity of Covid-19 remains high in Malaysia and even briefly exceeded pre-movement control order levels in Sabah.

According to charts shown by Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah at a press conference in Putrajaya today, the reproduction number (R_t) of the disease in Sabah, Kedah, as well as the rest of the country has remained above 1.0.

For Sabah, it reached as high as 3.72 on Sept 8 and 3.16 on Sept 11, before falling to the latest figure of 1.70 as of Sept 13.

In Kedah, the figure fluctuated between 2.63 and 1.54 since Sept 8 before reaching 1.64 on Sept 13.

On average, the R_t for the entire country fluctuated between 2.34 and 1.61, before reaching 1.58 as of Sept 13.

“These figures still exceed 1.0 in both states (Sabah and Kedah), which gives an impact on the R_t for the country.

“Public health interventions need to be continued and intensified so that this figure can be reduced below 1.0, thus reducing Covid-19’s transmission and infectivity in the community,” he said.

He reminded all members of society to continue to comply with the government standard operating procedures to curb the spread of the disease and to remain home if there is no reason to go outside.

For comparison, Noor Hisham had previously told reporters that Covid-19’s R_t was 3.55 prior to the implementation of the movement control order on March 18.

At the time, Malaysia was battling the spread of the Sri Petaling tabligh cluster, which had infected 3,375 people by the time the outbreak fizzled out and remains the largest Covid-19 cluster to date in Malaysia.

Other experts had estimated that the R_t in Hubei, China, was between 2.0 and 2.5 when the pandemic was just starting to spread rapidly in January, just before the Chinese government introduced the first of many of the world’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

R_t is a term used by epidemiologist the describe the infectivity of a disease. A figure of 3.72 would mean that, on average, each patient was spreading the disease to 3.72 other people throughout the course of the infection, who would then further spread the disease to others.

A figure above 1.0 means an outbreak is growing or even accelerating.

Noor Hisham had previously warned that the outbreak will spread exponentially if levels above 1.6 persist for a week or more, which would threaten to overwhelm Malaysia’s healthcare system.

Conversely, a figure below 1.0 would mean an outbreak is slowing, and would eventually fizzle out if the figure is maintained for a prolonged period of time.

Three temporary hospitals in Sabah

The top official announced today that the ministry had set up three temporary hospitals in Sabah following a spike in cases and clusters there.

The three - located at the Dewan Arena Belia in Tawau, Tawau prison complex and Lahad Datu district police headquarters - will be used to house asymptomatic and low-risk patients.

None are in operation yet, but they are ready in case existing healthcare facilities are unable to cope with further outbreaks.

“If the patients increase, then we will use these low-risk places. This is for those who are positive but are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

“We have identified these areas, but we have not used them yet, but maybe we will use them soon,” he said.  - Mkini