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PUTRAJAYA: The first week of the Conditional Movement Control Order (MCO) in the Klang Valley and Sabah has produced some improvements in Covid-19 infectivity, says Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The health director general said that the country’s R0 (R-zero) value, which measures the infectivity rate of a virus outbreak, has dropped from 2.2 to 1.5 last week.
However, Dr. Noor Hisham said the improvement is not good enough and must be below 1.0 before the country decides whether to continue with the conditional OLS.
“We have seen in the last week how the R0 was 2.2 and now it has dropped to 1.5. This is not good enough. Although we have seen an improvement, we can do better.
“We still have one more week left. If we can lower the R0 to 0.3 it would be good. But we are still monitoring this every day, ”Dr. Noor Hisham said at the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 press conference here on Tuesday (October 20).
Dr Noor Hisham said that with an R0 of 2.2, Malaysia could reach 4,500 Covid-19 cases a day by October 31.
“Fortunately, our R0 at the moment is 1.5, which means that our cases could reach 1,300 cases per day on October 31st. We don’t want that, so we need to reduce the R0 to less than one,” said the Dr. Noor Hisham.
Conditional MCO is currently implemented in Sabah, as well as in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, and Putrajaya.
Sabah’s conditional MCO is expected to end on October 26, while in the Klang Valley states, the order is until October 27.
However, this is still subject to the government’s decision to extend the conditional MCO.
Dr Noor Hisham said the decision was made to implement a conditional MCO rather than a full MCO where everyone is under strict closure orders.
“I think the conditional MCO helps. The decision to do so is for us to achieve a balance between life and livelihood.
“The MCO would have worked in a shorter period of time, but it comes at a cost to the country.
“With the conditional MCO, we allow the economy to function, but we control the social, educational and sports sectors,” said Dr. Noor Hisham.
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