Klang Valley CMCO extension depends on Covid-19 infectivity in the next week

 

COVID-19 | A week into the conditional movement control order (MCO) in the Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said more time is needed to determine if the situation warrants an extension to the order.

Citing Selangor as an example, he said the Covid-19 infectivity in the state - as measured by its reproduction number (R₀ or R_t) - has been reduced since the implementation of the condition MCO, but this is not good enough.

The Covid-19 infectivity in Selangor was higher than Sabah at 1.98, he said, which meant that, on average, each infected person in the state was passing on the disease to about two more people.

A week since the conditional MCO was implemented on Oct 14, Noor Hisham said the R_t for Covid-19 in the state now hovers between 1.48 and 1.50.

“We still have one week to look into the data. If we manage to bring down to, for example 0.3, and you follow the grey area (of a chart showing the Health Ministry’s projections, below) then probably we will suggest differently."

“Every day it is important for us to see the progress of where we are, and where we will be in one weeks’ time,” he said at his daily press conference in Putrajaya today.

Noor Hisham was responding to a question on whether he believes the worse is over in the Klang Valley, or there will still be more cases to come; and whether the conditional MCO in the three states and territories could be extended.

The conditional MCO for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, and Putrajaya came into effect from Oct 14 until 27 in a bid to control the Covid-19 outbreak in the state.

For the record, the World Health Organisation’s guidelines stipulate that Covid-19’s R_t should remain below 1.0 for at least two weeks for an outbreak to be considered “controlled and declining”.

It said this is the best indicator for whether an outbreak is under control, but assumes there is adequate disease surveillance in place to produce reliable estimates of the figure.

‘Consistent increase’ following Sabah-linked cluster

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said the third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak in Selangor started in late-September following the return of travellers from Sabah, which was already facing a large outbreak at the time.

The first cluster was the Jalan Apas cluster first reported on Sept 28, which involved a family returning from Sabah.

“The rise in locally transmitted cases within Selangor started to become apparent on Oct 2 and has been consistently increasing to this day.

“For information, a total of 26 active clusters have been reported in Selangor starting from the first (Jalan Apas cluster) to the latest to be announced (Hentian cluster),” he said.

He highlighted the high mobility and population density in the state as a driving factor in the outbreak, and hope members of the public can help by staying at home.

Of the 26 active clusters, he said 18 clusters were locally transmitted in the state, while another eight clusters have index cases who had a recent travel history to Sabah.

In addition, six of the latest clusters since Oct 11 were local infections, while nine of the 26 clusters involved Covid-19 transmission at workplaces. One cluster (the Utama cluster) was linked to a shopping mall.

This came as Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced work-from-home orders for management and supervisory staff in areas under conditional MCO today.

On another matter, Noor Hisham said the R₀ for Covid-19 in Kedah has now fallen to 0.7, which meant that the outbreak in the state is now in decline.

Kedah had seen several large outbreaks since July.

“Today the R₀ in Kedah is less than 1. Precisely it is 0.7. So, we can see fewer cases being reported in Kedah.

“I think we have successfully brought down the cases in Kedah and we hope we can bring it down further to 0.3.

“So once the spread in the prison can be controlled, it will certainly be less than 0.3,” he added. - Mkini