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PUTRAJAYA: The reduction in the infectivity rate of Covid-19 (R0 value) from 3.5 to 0.3 is due to the success of the Malaysian movement control order (MCO), says the Ministry of Health.
R0, which is pronounced “nothing”, refers to the infectivity rate of a virus within a community during an outbreak.
“For example, if the value of R is four, it means that for each Covid-19 positive patient, four people can become infected with the virus,” explained the director general of Health, Datuk Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah, in the Covid newspaper of the ministry. 19 press conference here.
“The value of R can decrease if the correct preventive measures are continuously implemented within a community.
“Similarly, the value of R can increase if people are careless and ignore preventive measures.
“We need to reduce the value of R to less than one over an extended period to end a pandemic,” said Dr. Noor Hisham.
At the press conference, Dr. Noor Hisham showed a graph detailing the Covid-19 model and projection from the National Institute of Health.
The graph showed that if the ministry’s standard operating procedures (SOP) are strictly followed, the number of daily cases will drop to single digits, while R0 will be less than 0.3.
However, if R0 rises to 1.60 due to the public not adhering to SOPs, there will be an exponential increase in the number of new cases.
“The value 0.3 R0 is due to the effects of the third and fourth phase of the OLS two weeks ago.
“Now, we are waiting to see if the reduction of the restrictions under the conditional MCO will make R0 rise or fall.
“If R0 goes up, it is a warning for us to take drastic measures. So whether we go back to the MCO or not, it all depends on the Malays and their ability to observe social discipline, ”he said.
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