KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 — Health Minister Dr Adham Baba today projected that Malaysia’s Covid-19 epidemic would decline to 500 daily cases by May, after authorities lifted lockdown measures.
He noted that the nationwide Rt, the Covid-19 reproduction rate, has declined to 0.87 yesterday from 0.89 two weeks ago, attributing it to compliance with standard operating procedures (SOPs).
“If this trend of decline can be maintained by the people continuing to follow SOP, by May 2021, we project reported cases to be around 500 a day. However, if SOP cannot be followed, the Rt is projected to exceed 1.0, same with the daily cases that will see an increase,” Dr Adham told a joint virtual press conference with Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.
An Rt value above 1.0 indicates that the epidemic continues to grow, with one case on average leading to another new case, while a figure below 1.0 shows the epidemic is declining. The Rt depends on reported cases.
Reported Covid-19 cases have been declining since early February from a high of 5,000 daily coronavirus infections at the end of January, two weeks after the second Movement Control Order (MCO) was imposed on January 13. Authorities have reported below 2,000 daily coronavirus infections on most days since March 1 for the past two weeks.
Movement restrictions have been lifted since, with the MCO on Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Johor, and Penang replaced with the Conditional MCO (CMCO) from March 5. Interdistrict travel is also now permitted nationwide.
Dr Adham also noted an increase in green districts reporting zero new Covid-19 cases in the past fortnight from six nationwide last February 28 to 11 on March 14. The 11 green districts comprised four in Kedah, two in Pahang, two in Perak, and one each in Kelantan, Terengganu, and Negeri Sembilan.
The peninsula saw a decline in red districts reporting more than 40 new coronavirus infections in the past two weeks from 42 nationwide last February 28 to 35 on March 14.
Sarawak and Sabah saw 11 and two districts respectively turning green in the same period.
“There was a significant increase in green districts in Sabah after such a long time struggling with Covid-19 since September,” said Dr Adham.
Former Health deputy director-general (public health) Dr Lokman Hakim Sulaiman said last February 28 that Malaysia has already passed the containment phase of the Covid-19 epidemic and entered mitigation, as there is widespread community transmission of the virus. He also said the number of reported cases is linked to testing, observing a decline in testing from the third week of 2021.
Veteran physician Dr Milton Lum wrote last March 10 that the actual number of cases of Covid-19 variants, reinfection, and infections among migrant workers living in Malaysia are still unknown. Migrant workers are only screened once under the mandatory screening policy, instead of regular testing.
