Covid-19: Third wave can be flattened in three weeks’ time - DG

 

The Health Ministry believes that they can flatten the curve of Covid-19 infection rate in three weeks’ time.

According to Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the number of new cases is expected to continue to increase in the average of 971 cases daily in the next week.

"Our projection is 971 cases (a day). So, in a week, the number of new cases would be more than 6,000.

"We might need another two to three weeks to flatten the curve," he told reporters during a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Noor Hisham was answering a reporter's question on a projection made by a local university recently, which warned that a spike in the number of daily positive cases would reach 5,000 in two weeks' time.

Universiti Sains Malaysia academic also urged the government to step up controls in order to address the problems, according to a report by The Vibes.

The top Health Ministry officer also expressed his optimism that their aim to reduce the R-naught figure to 0.5 can be achieved soon. R-naught figure is used by epidemiologists to describe how infectious a disease is. A rate above one meant that its infectivity was increasing.

"We had brought down (the R-naught figure) from 2.2 to 1.0 in slightly above two weeks. So perhaps we would be able to flatten the curve to 0.5 in three weeks’ time," he said.

"This is if we can get solid cooperation from all Malaysians," he added.

However, this, he stressed, would need cooperation from all in the country to adhere to guidelines provided by the Health Ministry to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

This includes staying at home if there is nothing important for one to leave their houses. And if they do need to go out, they need to follow the SOPs such as physical distancing, wearing face masks, and to always wash hands.

On the academicians' suggestion that the government should tighten the movement control order (MCO) in Covid-19 red zones, Noor Hisham said the ongoing conditional MCO being implemented on targeted areas has shown its effectiveness.

"Our strategy now is not like the one we used in March, where we implemented the (full) MCO. Now, we are trying to balance economic factors, but we control activities such as social and sports.

"By using conditional MCO, we now can see the effect after two weeks. We managed to bring down the R-naught from 2.2 to 1.0," he said.

On Oct 8, Noor Hisham announced that the country was facing the third wave of Covid-19 outbreak.

The new wave came just as Sabah concluded its state election on Sept 26, which saw political campaigning activities take place statewide for two weeks in the contest for 73 state assembly seats. - Mkini