LET’S CARE FOR EACH OTHER
THE whole country was ordered to go into full lockdown on June 1. On July 7, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, Perak, Pahang and Penang recovered and moved to Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
However, the situation in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Negri Sembilan and Melaka worsened compared with the start of the Full Movement Control Order. Hence, to evaluate the pandemic in Malaysia, one needs to go down to the district-level to see if the local authorities carried out their duties properly in terms of disease prevention and control.
Selangor and Kuala Lumpur are the national trendsetters, constituting about 60 per cent or more of the total cases since July 7. Some say that the state and territory have a large population and high density, hence transmission is easier.
However, looking at the number of cases per 100,000 population (based on a seven-day moving average), it showed that Labuan (72) and Negri Sembilan (70.7) performed worse than Selangor (66.0) and Kuala Lumpur (65.9) on July 13.
Then, came the announcement of the Enhanced MCO (EMCO) for a larger part of Selangor and some areas in Kuala Lumpur starting July 3.
This does not mean that the FMCO didn’t work in states that progressed to NRP Phase 2. Perlis (-85.0 per cent), Kelantan (-79.7 per cent), Terengganu (-65.1 per cent), Sarawak (-51.0 per cent) and Penang (-44.3 per cent) had shown significant reduction of daily new cases since June 1.
However, this is not the case for Selangor (+81.1 per cent), Putrajaya (+72.8 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (+71.9 per cent) and Negri Sembilan (+71.5 per cent). Their situation is much worse than on June 1.
If we look at the district level, 97 out of 159 districts (or 61 per cent) have improved on the 14-day local transmission cumulative cases. On the other hand, 61 districts (38 per cent) worsened since June 1.
So, the FMCO measures did work for some, but not for others. One has to dig deeper into the new cluster analysis to find out the sources of transmission.
Three districts in Selangor top the nation’s chart for the most new cases: Petaling, Hulu Langat and Klang. One can see that some clusters are clearly cross-district and mostly workplace-related.
Workplace clusters dominate most of the new clusters, having a lion share of 81.4 per cent.
This is the main source for the continuing local disease transmission for the affected states, because most likely people contracted the virus at their workplace, brought it home and infected other family members.
There is evidence that the health authorities have been working hard in contact tracing new clusters and close contacts. The number of confirmed cases from the contact tracing sources is on the rise, from 2,696 on July 1 to 4,896 on July 13.
When examined carefully, the categories and profiles of the top 20 new clusters in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur from June 1 to 10 are mostly at construction and industrial sites.
The positivity rates for many of such clusters are even more than 50 per cent, showing how easily people can get infected, transmit and move to others in the community.
Covid-19 disease control and pandemic management is not going to be easy if we were to rely on the health authorities only. People forget that we need a whole-society approach in dealing with the disease.
Even if official responses have limited impact, people have to help and care for each other, keep our solidarity to resolve the century’s biggest calamity. Thankfully, it is already happening.
DR LIM CHEE HAN
Kuala Lumpur