‘M’sia in final phase of recovery’

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia is in the final phase of recovery following the implementation of the movement control order (MCO) which has successfully reduced the number of new Covid-19 cases.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the implementation of the conditional MCO since May 4 had also reduced the infectivity rate or R-Naught (R0) to 0.3, compared with 0.6 during the MCO period.

“Before the MCO, the infectivity, R0 was 3.55, meaning one person could infect 3.55 people, and when we implement the MCO, we aimed to reduce the R0 to 0.6 and now, it decreased to 0.3. It means that an infected person can only infect 0.3 people, ” he said.

R0 is a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself.

It tells the average number of people who will contract the disease from one infected person, whereby reducing the R0 value to less than 1 continuously will help to end the outbreak. — Bernama