Chief Health Officer: MCO Can’t End Pandemic, Only Slow Spread of Covid-19



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PUTRAJAYA: The various stages of the motion control order (MCO) in effect since March 18 are intended to contain the spread of Covid-19, but cannot end the pandemic, says Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah .

“The public health methods and the implementation of OLS that we use will not end the infection. We can only control the infection and the fight will continue,” said the Director General of Health during a special briefing on Covid-19 problems here on Saturday. (November 21).

For eight months, he said, Malaysia managed to contain the infection by keeping the R-zero value below one, but cases began to increase in September and October.

“On the field, our leaders face mental and physical fatigue. But the virus never tires. It will infect us when we take PCOS lightly. Our war against the virus continues,” he said.

Dr. Noor Hisham noted that the conditional OLS had proven to be effective as fewer cases have been reported, with Melaka and Terengganu returning to a recovery OLS since Sunday (November 22).

For now, he said that the R-value is still between 0.9 and 1, but this is not good enough.

“If we can reduce it to less than 0.5, or better to 0.3, just like before the third wave, then we can all go back to the OLS of recovery, living normally but adhering to SOPs,” he said.

He also noted that the ministry would need official data from pharmaceutical companies that develop Covid-19 vaccines to study their presumed effectiveness.

“We will need the complete clinical data and records before deciding on our vaccine policy.

“We cannot recognize them simply by responding to media reports,” he said.



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