Health Ministry lists criteria for assessing Covid-19 contagion risk

 

Covid-19 | The Health Ministry has outlined the criteria it uses to assess the risk of Covid-19 transmission in an area to guide its decision-making.

This came a day after the ministry’s director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told a press conference yesterday that it no longer waits for a district to become a Covid-19 “red zone” before recommending imposing a conditional movement control order (CMCO). Instead, it will base its recommendations on risk assessment.

“In general, the classification of Covid-19 infection zones based on the daily number of cases and the cumulative number of cases over the past 14 days is the foundation of the District Risk Reduction Program (DRRP).

“It helps in the understanding of the next steps that need to be taken by the community with guidance from the local government.

“However, the classification of Covid-19 infection zones does not only depend on the DRRP but instead it is more important to consider the risk of Covid-19 transmission and infection in an area,” said Noor Hisham in a statement today.

He reiterated that the colour-coded approach is only to facilitate public understanding of the Covid-19 situation.

Under the approach, an area that has not recorded any Covid-19 cases in the past 14 days are classified as “green zones”, while those that have one to 20 cases are yellow zones.

Orange zones are those with 21 to 40 cases, while red zones have 41 cases and above.

Noor Hisham said one criterion in its risk assessment is the rate that cases are increasing, where a sudden spike indicates widespread infection.

The location where cases have been reported would also be mapped to determine whether it is concentrated in a small area or is spread out, and this forms the second criterion for consideration.

The third is the proportion of cases that do not show symptoms, since a higher proportion would mean more patients do not realise they have been infected. In July, Noor Hisham said 70.25 percent of patients did not show symptoms.

The Health Ministry also considers the population density of the affected area, as well as its sociodemographic background.

Areas that have high population density and temporary worker housing, for example, are at increased risk.

“Factors such as non-citizen residents in a locality, population mobility in crossing sub-districts, districts, or states for work or school, the presence of ‘rat lanes’ for foreigners to enter the country, and so on, have the risk of increasing the spread of the disease,” Noor Hisham added.

The Health Ministry is also on the lookout for shared facilities such as markets, supermarkets, schools, places of worship, and other premises where people could gather.

The ministry will also consider whether there was a mass gathering of people in a locality during an infectious period.

The ministry takes mitigating factors into account as well, such as the number of close contacts of cases that could be identified, the number of people ordered to undergo quarantine, and the number of residents involved. - Mkini