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PETALING JAYA: The chairman of the Selangor Covid-19 Task Force (STFC), Dzulkefly Ahmad, raised the alarm and said that any further delay by the authorities to hire more avant-garde will cause the number of Covid-19 cases it “shoots”.
He said having more front-line people means faster testing and training, and the sooner authorities do it, the better it will be at containing the spread of the pandemic.
“Selangor will suffer more if we take it easy,” the former health minister said in a statement.
“Any further delay means that we will only be reactively tracking the virus and see transmissions skyrocket.”
On January 7, former Deputy Health Minister Dr. Lee Boon Chye also urged the government to strengthen contact tracing by hiring 10,000 young people in the short term.
“There are so many unemployed graduates, hired healthcare personnel, and medical, nursing and pharmacy graduates that can be hired,” Lee said.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health reported 5,725 new cases with 16 deaths in 24 hours. Selangor recorded the highest positive tests with 3,126 cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur (687) and Johor (684).
Dzulkefly cited several factors that had led to this escalation, namely those involving a backlog of evidence dating back 10 days in prisons, clinics and private hospitals.
“The collaboration between the relevant parties must be further strengthened by taking more precise measures to curb the virus.”
He also said that Selangor had launched its Preventing Outbreak at Ignition Site (POIS) program in a joint venture involving state government, employers and NGOs to assess workplaces in stages.
He said POIS will collaborate with the state Department of Health, its health subsidiary Selgate Corporation Sdn Bhd, all local authorities and the Federation of Manufacturers of Malaysia.
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