The Malaysian Insight

THE Health Ministry is seeing up to 100 dead on arrival (DOA) cases of coronavirus a week, deputy director-general of public Health Dr Chong Chee Keong said.

“We are seeing roughly 80 to 100 DOA cases per week recently,” he said in a press conference today.

He said such cases have been rising consistently over the last few weeks.

“When we analysed the (bodies of) DOA cases, which is about 100 a week, we noticed that 80% of them were never diagnosed.”

“In other words there is a group of people who either have no access to diagnosis or for reasons of their own, they are not coming forward to get tested,” said Chong, who leads the greater Klang Valley Covid19 task force.

He said a sizeable proportion of the dead on arrival cases were foreigners.

The remaining 20% of the dead victims who knew they had Covid-19 had either sought treatment late or did not seek treatment at all.

He said this was where self-assessment and the virtual Covid-19 Assessment Centre (CAC) came into play.

Chong said about 60% of positive cases were asymptomatic and 30% had mild symptoms.

That left about 5-10% of cases who need to be physically assessed, he said.

“These are the people we want to come to the CAC and if they need to be admitted, they will be admitted… so we can dedicate our resources, our attention and focus to those who need it.

He added those with mild symptoms would be virtually monitored for warning signs.

Those who need immediate medical attention would be called in for the next course of action.

He said half the people who were virtually monitored failed to use the self-assessment tool, prompting  health authorities to remind them via Robocall or a computerised message.

As for the rising number cases, Dr Chong said it was the “cumulative effect” of infections that occured a month ago.

“We have to talk about the incubation period and the fact the virus is in our community. A month ago we saw the easing of the MCO 3.0; at the same time the economic sector was also (allowed to open) to help people (regain) their livelihoods,” he said.

He said people had also travelled during the festive period. 

These, coupled with the prevalence of the more contagious Delta virus strain, led to the high number of cases.

Chong said the greater Klang Valley Covid-19 task force was formed to mitigate this. – August 6, 2021.