KUALA LUMPUR: The Covid-19 pandemic situation in Malaysia continue to deteriorate as the Covid-19 R-naught (Rt) rate according to daily coronavirus cases remained on an upward trend with the value of 1.19 on Saturday.
It is the highest Rt value ever recorded this year compared to the previous high of 1.17 recorded on January 16.
According to data shared by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on his Facebook account this morning, the ascending trend of the Rt rate continued since the middle of last month when it was at the 0.81 value, before rising above 1.0 value earlier this month, and is now approaching the 1.2 value.
This is in line with the increasing daily Covid-19 cases which has now breached the 2,000 case mark since Thursday, although new cases had registered a drop of up to three figures on March 29.
The Rt value refers to the contagion level of a virus, i.e. how many individuals can be infected by a positive case. The lower the value, the less likely an infection will take place for each positive case.
For example, if the value of Rt is 1.5, it means one positive case can see it spread to one or two other people.
The data shared by Dr Noor Hisham also showed that the Covid-19 cases surge was faster than anticipated by the Health Ministry (MoH), which had projected daily coronavirus cases to jump to more than 2,000 by mid-May in the event the Rt reaches 1.2.
Apart from that, data also showed that six states recorded higher Rt rates than the national average on Saturday, with Kelantan recording the highest value of 1.32.
This was followed by Kuala Lumpur (1.27), Sarawak (1.23), Terengganu (1.21), Sabah (1.21) and Negri Sembilan (1.20).
The number of weekly Covid-19 cases also jumped to its highest level in six weeks when a total of recorded coronavirus numbers stood at 13,726 cases this week.
The last time the weekly number of cases recorded such a rate was at the beginning of last month, with 13,462 cases at the beginning of March.