PUTRAJAYA: The next two weeks will determine if the actions taken by the government to break the Covid-19 chain are effective, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said yesterday.
He said there was a trend of new cases continuing to be reported after the first two weeks of the Movement Control Order (MCO).
“We have seen that the number of daily cases has increased and sometimes plateaued, while the number of discharged patients increases day after day.
“ This data shows the efficacy of the actions taken by the Health Ministry and other agencies in the past month,” he said at a press conference here yesterday.
He reminded people that the next two weeks were crucial and that everyone’s cooperation was needed to ensure that the virus’ chain of transmission could be broken.
He also said statistics showed that two age groups had among the highest number of Covid-19 cases; those between 26 and 30, and those between 56 and 60.
“For the younger age group, perhaps they are students who had just returned from overseas or who were always out, even during the MCO.
“The other group could be the heads of households who went out to buy groceries and contracted the virus while they were out,” he said.
Up to 6pm yesterday, there were six new deaths and 58 more patients had recovered and were discharged from hospitals.
“Of the cases undergoing treatment in hospital, 94 are in Intensive Care Units, and 60 of them require breathing assistance.”
He said the death toll stood at 43 and there were 140 new cases, bringing the tally of infections to 2,766.
One of the six new deaths was a 40-year-old Indonesian, who was a lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He was treated at Sarawak General Hospital and died at 1.38am yesterday.
This, said Dr Noor Hisham, was Malaysia’s first recorded foreign Covid-19 death.
He said health authorities were working with the police to track down 87 Malaysians who went to Sulawesi, Indonesia, to attend a religious gathering that was eventually cancelled.
The 87 who travelled to Sulawesi, he said, were at high risk of contracting the virus.
“We are trying to get more information. We have identified the 87 persons.
“We are working with the police to track them.”
On the Enhanced MCO at Menara City One in Jalan Munshi Abdullah, Kuala Lumpur, Dr Noor Hisham said there were 17 Covid-19 cases, and they were related to an index case who attended the tabligh gathering at Masjid Jamek Sri Petaling.
“The index case had infected 12 family members. Three apartments were involved.
“Because of the rapid increase of cases in the building, our decision was to enforce the Enhanced MCO.”
He confirmed that medical officers had started screening residents there last night.
“We are making sure all apartments are screened. They are being screened in stages.”