PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry has rubbished claims that asymptomatic patients are no longer being screened for Covid-19.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said screening priority would be given to those exhibiting the symptoms first.
He said this was done in Sabah and the Klang Valley, where the number of cases were reportedly high in the past few months.
"It is not true (asymptomatic patients are not tested). If we look at statistics of foreign workers being screened, 90 per cent of them are asymptomatic, while the remaining 10 per cent are symptomatic.
"What we are doing is prioritising screening for those showing symptoms," he said in a press conference today.
However, he said in other states, equal number of screening is given to both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients due to lower number of cases.
Meanwhile, he said the home isolation method had eased congestion at hospitals and Crisis Preparedness and Response Centres (CPRC) nationwide.
In the first week, 28,412 were reported to have observed home quarantine, with the numbers dropping to 19,800 for the second week this month.
Bed occupancy rate in hospitals, he said, had dropped to 47 per cent while bed occupancy in CPRC dropped to 37 per cent.
Bed occupancy specifically for Covid-19 patients had also dropped to 38 per cent, he said.
"The ICU for Covid-19 patients is now at 55 per cent. Previously the occupancy rate (at the ICU) was between 80 and 90 per cent. This has given us room to improve our facilities from time to time," he added.