PM says MCO necessary as health system at 'breaking point'

 

COVID-19 | Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin today conceded that the nation's public healthcare system was at a "breaking point".

"At present, the Health Ministry's facilities cannot cope with 2,000 new Covid-19 cases daily.

"Our healthcare system is at breaking point," he said in a televised address.

According to Muhyiddin, 15 designated Covid-19 hospitals have reported bed usage of more than 70 percent.

In the Klang Valley, he said intensive care unit (ICU) beds usage in the Kuala Lumpur general hospital and the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre had reached 100 percent, while the figure was 83 percent for the Sungai Buloh Hospital.

ICU bed usage in Perak, Selangor, Malacca, Terengganu, and Sarawak had also exceeded 70 percent.

The prime minister did not provide a detailed breakdown of the ICU bed usage. As of yesterday, there were 177 Covid-19 patients in intensive care and 82 who required ventilators to survive.

Muhyiddin said 1,450 hospital staff members are out of action, either because they are Covid-19 positive or under quarantine. 

He also noted that medical frontliners were exhausted after battling the pandemic for almost a year.

The rise in daily new Covid-19 cases, he said, had also caused delays in healthcare workers bringing infected individuals for treatment.

"Based on the current R-naught (R₀) value of 1.1 for the rate of Covid-19 infectivity in Malaysia, it is projected that the cases will reach 5,000 a day by the second week of April and 8,000 a day in the fourth week of May."

Muhyiddin said the higher the R₀ value, the more difficult it would become for health authorities to bring the pandemic under control, adding that this trend is worrying.

"The government realises that tougher action must be taken to break the Covid-19 chain of infection and to reduce the number of daily Covid-19 cases to a level that can be more effectively controlled and managed.

"The situation today is indeed very alarming. Our healthcare system is under tremendous pressure now, than at any other time since the start of the pandemic.

"As I have said before, unprecedented situations call for unprecedented measures," he added.

Vaccines on the way

The premier announced that a two-week movement control order (MCO), which mandates strict stay-at-home rules, will be enforced beginning Wednesday in Selangor, Penang, Malacca, Johor, Sabah and all three federal territories (Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan).

Primarily, this will involve a ban in district and state border crossings, closure of schools, public events and non-essential services, among others, to limit travel.

"The MCO in March last year managed to reduce the R₀ value to 0.335, thereby bringing the daily Covid-19 cases to only single or double digits," he said.

In a related development, Muhyiddin said the phase 3 clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by China will commence at nine hospitals in Malaysia beginning Jan 21.

He said the clinical trial involving 3,000 volunteers will be the first outside of China.

The inactivated Covid-19 vaccine is produced by the Institute of Medical Biology Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China.

Concurrently, he said, Malaysia expects to receive the first batch of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines in February.

He added that the government has a vaccine supply arrangement with Covax, Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

These, he said, are enough to vaccinate 40 percent of the population, but he also noted that 60 to 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

As such, Muhyiddin said, the government is also in negotiations with Sinovac, CanSino and Gamaleya to increase the vaccine supply to cover 80 percent of the population. - Mkini