‘Rise in cases may be due to mass testing’

IPOH: The rise in Covid-19 cases in Perak is believed to be due to the mass testing, says Ipoh City Watch president Prof Dr Richard Ng.

He said several new clusters had been detected in the last few days, and he expected the number to rise as more tests were done.

“A few new clusters were detected at factories and construction sites,” Prof Ng added.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had said Perak was expected to see a surge in cases over the next two to three weeks. At a previous press conference, he said Perak recorded four cases involving “variants of concern”.

As of yesterday, 693 new cases were reported in Perak, taking the total to 38,372.

Prof Ng, who is also an Ipoh City Councillor, said more standard operating procedure compliance operations should be held at factories and workers’ hostels.

“The government should also ensure that all factory workers, especially foreign workers, are vaccinated before the respective factory can reopen,” he said.

“Apart from the industrial sector, traders, especially those selling durians, should also be monitored closely.”

Prof Ng said high-density areas such as lowcost flats or properties managed by local governments or the state housing and property board should have SOP compliance checks.

“As these are government-owned buildings, they should start to get residents to do checkin using their Mysejahtera app and take temperatures. This would help with early detection and prevent the spread,” he said.

“I would suggest for the state Health Department to come and vaccinate these residents on-site rather than getting them to go to vaccination centres,” he added.

He also called on the government to ramp up the vaccination process in red zone areas.

“This can be done via the outreach programmes. At the moment, more than 80% of the population above 18 in the Kinta District have registered for vaccination, but less than 20% are fully vaccinated.

“If need be, enforce the enhanced movement control order in areas with increasing cases immediately to conduct swab tests and get them vaccinated,” he said.

Malaysian Medical Association Perak chairman Dr G. Satkunan Mark said it was hard to pinpoint the cause of the surge.

“There are a number of clusters in various areas ... The Delta variant could be a high possibility, as we know it spreads rapidly, but we would need to wait for the Health directorgeneral for statistics, whether it is taking over other variants,” he said.