The Malaysian Insight

IT is premature to even think that the worst of the Covid crisis is over for Malaysia in the face of inadequate tests that fail to show the extent of infections, said doctors.

Daily cases have hovered around 5,000 in recent weeks after hitting a record 9,020 on May 29.

Doctors told The Malaysian Insight Malaysians cannot be complacent as the recent drop in new cases has been due to inadequate testing rather than effective containment measures.

Former deputy health minister Dr Lee Boon Chye said the data has been conflicting.

“Just based on testing and positivity, it is premature to conclude that the worst is over,” he said while referring to the weekly Covid-19 test numbers.

“Furthermore, community transmission is still relatively high at level 4. However, the daily mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) cases seem to be over the peak and these may be the early indicators that the worst is over.”

The total number of Covid-19 tests conducted last week dipped by 10.9% to 561,156 compared with the preceding week, while the positivity rate rose by 0.3%, according to the Health Ministry’s weekly epidemiological report.

An average of 80,165 tests were conducted per day in the week between June 13 and 19.

Meanwhile, the positivity rate for the week under review was 6.93% and 38,911 cases were reported.

The data includes the test samples taken by government facilities and private healthcare providers.

Consultant paediatrician at KPJ Damansara Specialist Hospital Dr Musa Mohd Nordin also agreed that testing has been inadequate, adding that ideally, the testing rate should be at 1% of the unvaccinated population.

He said if the 8.6 million under-18 people are excluded, there will be about 20 million unvaccinated people.

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has said Malaysia has been meeting the World Health Organization benchmark for adequate testing.

According to the benchmark, there should be at least 10 negative tests for every positive test.

Noor Hisham said the benchmark also determines that the best indication for an adequate test rate would be 30 negative tests for one positive test.

Emergency done little to contain virus

Musa said other countries that had more severe conditions of infection were able to contain the pandemic without an emergency.

“Despite more than five months of the emergency and multiple permutations of the movement-control order (MCO), the National Security Council has failed to control and contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Numbers do not lie,” he said.

Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have been able to mitigate the deadly effects of the pandemic with rapid find, test, trace, isolate and support (FTTIS) response and a warp speed vaccine rollout, without any proclamation of emergency, he said.

He said until January 10, the national Covid-19 caseload was 135,992.

However, since the emergency was declared on January 11, the caseload had swelled to 560,416 as at June 20.

“Up until January 10, Malaysia had 555 deaths. Since the emergency and until June 20, we have registered 3,853 deaths (87% of total fatalities),” he said.

“If anything, the emergency has depressed investor confidence in Malaysia, reflected in the dip in the stock market since the state of emergency was announced,” he said.

“Other metrics of this devastation of the economy upon the emergency are the contraction of the gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2021, unemployment rate above 4.5% and the closure of 100,000 SMEs (small and medium enterprises).”

Lee, meanwhile, said the emergency has little to do with reining in the pandemic and more to do with politics.

He said despite the full movement-control order, the daily cases have been above 4,000, which indicates that the pandemic is certainly not under control.

He said while vaccination was initially slow it has since picked up as more supplies arrived.

“At the current rate of vaccination, we will reach about 16 million doses (about 50 dose per 100 population) by early August, 80% of the adult population vaccinated by early November and 80% of all population vaccinated by year end,” he said.

“It is slightly faster than the initial plan, but this should be expedited in view of the worsening pandemic and the continuing need for lockdown.”

The state of emergency was declared to mitigate the pandemic and will be in effect until August 1.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin recently unveiled a national recovery plan to outline the country’s exit from the pandemic.

Progression to the next recovery phase will depend on three indicators, namely the number of Covid-19 cases daily, the capacity of the healthcare system, including beds available in ICU and the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated against Covid-19.

He said the first phase entails the MCO and the second phase will only begin when the average number of new Covid-19 infections falls below 4,000. – June 26, 2021.