Malaysia may exceed 15,000 Covid-19 cases early next week but it should not be the cause for panic so long as the daily fatality rates keep to single-digit numbers
Malaysia may exceed 15,000 Covid-19 cases early next week but it should not be the cause for panic so long as the daily fatality rates keep to single-digit numbers.
Today, the Health Ministry reported 13,944 new Covid-19 cases today bringing the cumulative infections in the country to 2,939,198. Yesterday, there were 11,034 cases and nine deaths.
It would appear that the Minister of Health, Khairy Jamaluddin’s figure of 15,000 cases, the Health director-general Noor Hisham’s 22,000 cases and my public health expert’s 25,000 cases may be exceeded by the middle of the month, and we will be heading to new daily peak for Covid-19 cases – which was set on 26th August 2021 at 24,599 cases.
But this is the era of the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible than the Delta variant but so far, not more severe or deadly or requiring more hospitalisation.
Khairy has cautioned yesterday that the worst is yet to come in terms of daily number of new cases as the country is now facing a full Omicron wave.
He advised those who have yet to receive their Covid-19 vaccine booster dose, particularly the elderly who are more vulnerable, should do so.
The infectivity rate as of yesterday stood at 1.2. A sustained value above 1.0 leads to an exponential spread of the virus.
During the Delta wave, it overwhelmed the healthcare system as the number of Covid-19 patients who needed treatment surpassed what hospitals can handle.
The Health Ministry had said that its modelling suggested that the healthcare system should be able to handle the current wave with almost 80 percent of the total population already vaccinated. The first case of Omicron variant was in the second half of November last year.
But there is no basis whatsoever for the Senior Minister for International Trade and Industry, Azmin Ali, to claim that the Perikatan Nasional government was the best globally in managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
We need only refer to the spurious Emergency that was declared on January 11, 2021 allegedly to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
When the Emergency started on January 11, 2021 there were 2,232 daily new cases and four daily Covid-19 deaths and n the cumulative totals for Malaysia were 138,222 Covid-19 cases and 555 Covid-19 deaths.
On August 1, 2021 when Emergency ended the daily new cases and deaths have shot up to 17,150 cases and 160 deaths, while the cumulative total of cases have multiplied by more than eight times to 1,130,422 cases and the cumulative total of Covid-19 deaths have shot up more than 16 times to 9,184 deaths
Nobody except for Azmin would describe the Emergency to combat the Covid-19 pandemic in the form of the Delta variant as a success.
We are now facing a different ballgame with the Omicron wave, as we will exceed the cumulative total of three million Covid-19 cases in the next few days.
We should follow the examples of other countries of opening up the economy and social life, while following the SOPs of masks and social distancing, and this should be the basis of the SOPs for the Johore state general election which will be announced tomorrow.