Downward trend in Covid-19 cases

PETALING JAYA: With Covid-19 cases during Hari Raya dropping almost 60% from the week before, health experts believe that this could be due to people not self-reporting or self-testing.

As most cases were mild and not requiring hospitalisation, they said those who tested positive would not have to seek treatment.

However, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah appealed to the public to self-report via the MySejahtera app to help the ongoing surveillance by the ministry.

“We are not only looking at daily cases but also the admission in the Covid-19 quarantine and treatment centres, hospitals as well as the utilisation of intensive care units and ventilators, and deaths.

“All cases whether tested negative or positive must be reported on MySejahtera,” he said when contacted yesterday.

In a statement earlier, he said the number of new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia for the 18th epidemiological week from May 1-7 had dropped 58.3% to 8,732 cases, from 20,937 cases the week before.

Prof Dr Moy Foong Ming of Universiti Malaya’s social and preventive medicine department said over the next two weeks, there might be an increase in total cases due to the relaxation of health protocols and Malaysians’ higher mobility during the festive period.

However, she said this might not be reflected on MySejahtera with people not reporting their status. She added that the hospitalisation rate would show the actual Covid-19 situation in the country.

“Most of the cases are mild and only less than 0.5% need hospitalisation. So for the current update, all statistics are on the declining trend.

“But all cases should be reported, mild or otherwise, so that the Health Ministry can better plan. When total cases increase, the number of hospitalisations will also increase,” she said.

Prof Moy said a rise in cases was expected with high mobility of people during the Raya break, but projected the highest caseloads to be not more than 10,000.

The other concern is that on unvaccinated children, with the Covid-19 vaccination take-up rate among those aged between five and 11 only at 26.2% presently.

Prof Moy advised parents to get their children vaccinated as the virus presents a substantial risk of harm, including long-term health complications such as organ damage, long Covid or multi-system inflammatory syndrome, and even death to at least some proportion of the children.

Universiti Putra Malaysia epidemiologist and biostatistician Assoc Prof Dr Malina Osman said although cases would likely rise, the clinical impact would not be significant as most infections were expected to be mild.

“In my opinion, the majority will manifest mild manifestations except those with high risk and not fully vaccinated or have not received the booster,” she said.

Dr Malina said that parents had been given ample time to decide the best for their children but the vaccine take-up rate was still unsatisfactory.

The target was to achieve 70% to 80% coverage for children, she said.

“What we can do is just to provide sound advice and appropriate medical evidence to encourage parents to come forward to get their children vaccinated,” she said.

Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM) president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh believed that the number of cases last week might have declined due to people not reporting or not self-testing anymore.

“We don’t want to give people a false sense of security that the Covid-19 numbers are low in this country when it could actually be the opposite.

“Due to the movements during the Raya holidays and liberalisation of the SOP, of course we can anticipate that cases are going to increase, not just for Covid-19, but other infectious diseases as well.

“But people may not report their Covid-19 status on MySejahtera due to the seven-day quarantine order. Another possibility is that people may also not be self-testing as much as before because perhaps the symptoms are mild or they are around people who have already been infected before, so they feel that it’s not very risky,” he said.