COVID-19 | Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has sounded the ominous warning that Sabah's Covid-19 caseloads were set to increase in the near term.
This was because the Health Ministry was intensifying testing efforts in the state, which currently has the highest number of active Covid-19 cases - 1,943 as of noon yesterday.
While increased testing efforts tend to return higher case numbers, perhaps the most worrying issue in Sabah is the mortality figures and the fact that the numbers of people reporting having Covid-19 symptoms are on the rise.
Also of concern is that more and more cases are detected through screenings that cannot be linked to the existing clusters - indicating that a big population of infected individuals is at large.
Since Sept 15, there have been 18 Covid-related deaths on record, of which 14 were from Sabah.
Kedah, which had 1,251 active cases as of yesterday, in contrast, registered only three deaths.
The bulk of the affected people in Kedah are linked to the Alor Setar jail, with those infected being mostly inmates, followed by wardens and their family members.
Everyone in jail has been subjected to preventive testing procedures to separate the sick from the healthy.
More people turning up sick in Sabah
In contrast, Health Ministry statistics showed that, increasingly, more people turning up at health facilities in Sabah are already sick with the coronavirus.
Up until yesterday, Health Ministry statistics for Sabah have been highly detailed, providing breakdowns for how each new case was detected.
Categories include cases detected from clusters, from pre-surgery screening, community screening, contact tracing, police detention centres and screening of medical personnel, among others.
However, the most important category was case detection through "saringan bergejala" (screening of those with symptoms), in which the numbers rose dramatically since Sept 21 last month.
From just single-digits 10 days ago, the numbers of new cases from those with symptoms have jumped to triple digits, twice over the past six days.
Those with symptoms are considered to be more contagious and have a higher chance of mortality.
The Health Ministry has stopped providing a detailed breakdown of Sabah's new cases, which were 271 - the second-highest figure for the territory so far.
Instead, the ministry only listed down new cases from clusters and stated that 252 of the cases were from "pelbagai saringan lain" (other types of screening).
If this form of reporting were to continue, Malaysians - in particular Sabahans - will not be able to know just how severe the spread of Covid-19 in Sabah is.
Refusal to get tested for fear of losing income
Former Health Ministry specialist Dr Amar Singh believes that paying attention to the number of cases not linked to clusters can show how dire the situation is in the Borneo state.
Analysing these figures, Amar said the community spread in Sabah is "extremely worrying".
He said with more than 90 percent of the cases not linked to clusters, contact tracing would be difficult and the outbreak would continue to be unchecked in Sabah.
"Sabah needs help and resources," Amar said on Twitter.
While the ministry continues to send over equipment and human resources from the peninsular to help Sabah, local socioeconomic conditions also pose a challenge, frontliners say.
In Semporna, Dr Mohamad Ashrof Abdullah told Berita Harian that the locals were reluctant to be tested because they feared missing out on a day's wage.
"Most of them are self-employed, as fishermen and the like, and some of them refuse to get tested because they fear it means they won't be able to go out to earn a living (if they are quarantined)," Mohamad Ashrof, who is among a team of doctors, health assistants, nurses and health inspectors sent to Semporna from Peninsular Malaysia.
Delay in seeking treatment is among the factors for the Covid-19 fatality.
If conditions persist, more are expected to be affected with symptoms so severe that they would require intensive care, stretching an already overburdened Sabah healthcare system. - Mkini
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