COVID-19 | The Health Ministry has sounded the ominous warning that the nation's healthcare system was reaching a "breaking point" with quarantine centres overwhelmed, contact tracing delayed and a record number of patients in intensive care.
The dire situation described by Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday was eerily similar to what happened in Sabah in October and November when healthcare workers struggled with long shifts and many Covid-19 positive patients were told to stay at home, unless they were critically ill.
Sabah has suffered the brunt of Covid-19. As of yesterday, the state had reported the most cases in the country and accounted for 54 percent of Malaysia's Covid-19 related deaths.
While Sabah has somewhat turned the tide before the 2020 year-end by imposing economically crippling lockdown measures, raw case numbers in Peninsular Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley, are on the rise.
The surge in Klang Valley cases was driven by targeted testing in workplaces, particularly in migrant-dependent industries such as construction and manufacturing. However, as Noor Hisham had warned, the spread among Malaysians was just as bad.
As explained by Malaysiakini in a previous article, early October saw a large number of people in Sabah reporting symptoms before the state's healthcare system was overwhelmed.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), infected people can be contagious, regardless of whether they have symptoms or not.
Patients are at the highest risk of infecting others between three days before developing symptoms and seven days after developing symptoms, according to Noor Hisham on Dec 28.
Those classified to be without symptoms, who might even be pre-symptomatic, can still pass the virus to others, although WHO said it is still unclear how frequently this occurs.
From the data provided by the Selangor Health Department, this state could be heading on a similar trajectory as Sabah. It should be noted that no other state Health Department is publishing granular data as of now.
The number of new cases detected from persons who reported symptoms, including severe acute respiratory illness and influenza-like illness, has been steadily trending upwards since early December.
A peak of 62 new cases with symptoms was reached on Jan 4, more than double the number on Dec 8 when the travel ban across district and state borders was lifted.
The chart only shows people with symptoms who are not close contacts or part of a cluster.
In other words, when the Selangor Health Department classifies a case as "saringan bergejala" (screening of those with symptoms), the source of infection at the time of confirmation was unknown.
It should also be noted that the number of Covid-19 related deaths in Selangor is on the rise.
As of today, Selangor has reported 58 deaths. However, 33 of those deaths (56.9 percent) were reported between Dec 3 and Jan 6 - a 34-day period or almost one reported death per day.
The median age of the victims was 64. The number of male victims was 18 and the deaths of females were 15 during that period.
Based on the current trajectory of the new cases from those with symptoms and the increasing number of deaths, and in view of schools set to reopen during the third week of January and another travel season looming with Chinese New Year (on Feb 12 and 13) in the second week of February, it is unlikely that Selangor, and the rest of Peninsular Malaysia, will be turning the curve any time soon.
Data for this story is sourced from the Selangor Health Department, Health Ministry and from Malaysiakini's Covid-19 tracker page maintained by Aidila Razak, Lee Long Hui, Hariz Mohd, Wong Kai Hui and Hazman Hazwan, among others. - Mkini
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