PETALING JAYA: Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has noted the link between the current increase in Covid-19 cases and cross country travel, stating that a similar loosening of restrictions last December led to a surge in cases.
The number of new cases was below the 2,000 mark when the government announced that cross country travel would be allowed from Dec 7 last year. It shot up to a high of 5,298 cases on Jan 31.
While Malaysia has seen a general decline in the number of cases over the past three months after an all-time record of 24,599 on Aug 26, Noor Hisham said the Oct 11 re-opening of state borders should serve as a lesson as cases have been above the 6,000 mark for the past three days.
The number of cases had averaged about 5,000 earlier this month and even dropped to 4,343 on Nov 7, the lowest since May 16.
“The Covid-19 infectivity rate (R0) has increased to 1.0 as of Nov 11, more than five weeks after cross country travel was allowed on Oct 11,” he said in an online press conference.
“There was a trend of increasing cases after cross country travel was allowed from Dec 7, when we saw that the peak number of cases was recorded five to six weeks later.
“This is an early reminder for us that active steps have to be taken to ensure there are no similar rises in cases now. We have to do this by maintaining compliance to SOPs and increasing the number of people with booster shots.”
The infectivity rate represents how many people an infected person will transmit the virus to on average. A number above 1.0 suggests that cases will increase, with anything below that suggesting that they will fall.
While he later went on to state that cross country travel was “no problem”, Noor Hisham explained that people gathering in close proximity was more of a concern. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.