By Melati Mohd Ariff
This is a round-up of COVID-19 related matters in Malaysia and globally from July 10 up to noon today. In Malaysia, case numbers have exceeded 880,000 and globally, the virus has infected nearly 189 million people and caused over four million deaths. More than 216 countries and territories are affected by the pandemic.
KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama) – New COVID-19 case numbers are exploding in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan, pushing up the nation’s active caseload to a new high of 108,369.
As of yesterday, Malaysia’s cumulative figure stood at 880,782 and it is on the brink of surpassing the one million mark if the nation continues to record five-figure new infections in the coming days.
Yesterday, 13,215 new cases were reported nationwide – the highest single-day figure since the first three COVID-19 cases were detected in the country on Jan 25, 2020.
Malaysia first saw five-figure new infections on Tuesday (July 13) when 11,079 positive cases were reported, followed by 11,618 on Wednesday (July 14) and 13,215 yesterday (July 15).
Earlier during the week under review, 9,353 new cases were recorded on July 10; 9,105 (July 11) and 8,574 (July 12).
According to Ministry of Health (MOH) data, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan accounted for around 70 percent of the new cases reported on July 13; 70 percent of the new cases reported on July 14; and 72 percent of the new cases reported on July 15.
Following is the daily breakdown of new cases reported by Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan from July 10-15.
Selangor – July 10 (4,277); July 11(4,682); July 12 (4,308); July 13 J (5,263); July 14 (5,051); and July 15 (6,120).
Kuala Lumpur – July 10 (1,398); July 11 (1,247); July 12 (609); July 13 (1,521); July 14 (1,749); and July 15 (1,499).
Negeri Sembilan – July 10 (638); July 11 (541); July 12 (794); July 13 (1,033); July 14 (1,537); and July 15 (1,603).
An Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) has been enforced in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur from July 3 to July 16. The EMCO involves 34 mukim in Selangor and 14 localities in Kuala Lumpur.
In Negeri Sembilan, the district of Seremban (involving the mukim of Ampangan, Labu, Lenggong, Pantai, Rantau, Lasah, Seremban and Setul) has been placed under EMCO from July 9 to July 22.
Besides the soaring number of new cases, Malaysia is also burdened by the emergence of new clusters, most of which are linked to the workplace.
As of yesterday, there were 873 active clusters nationwide. So far, a total of 3,168 clusters have been reported in the country and 2,295 of them have ended.
Out of the 26 new clusters reported yesterday, 15 were linked to workplaces, six community, two education and three detention centres.
Yesterday, the number of COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) dropped to 885, with 432 of them requiring respiratory aid. The highest number of ICU cases recorded so far was 972 on July 13.
Meanwhile, 110 fatalities were reported yesterday, bringing Malaysia’s COVID-19 death toll to 6,613 (0.75 percent of total cases).
With its total of 880,782 cases, Malaysia is now at the 32nd spot (33rd spot last Friday) in the list of 216 nations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just ahead of Malaysia is Portugal (920,200 cases) and Pakistan (981,392 cases).
OTHER RELATED DEVELOPMENTS IN MALAYSIA
Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob was quoted as saying that he expects the entire nation to shift to the second phase of the National Recovery Plan (PPN) early next month.
Ismail Sabri, who is also Defence Minister, has based his estimation on the current vaccination rate – the number of fully vaccinated people has now crossed the 10 percent threshold.
As of now, eight states namely Perlis, Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak have already moved to the second phase of PPN.
To shift to the second phase, the daily threshold of COVID-19 cases in a state or federal territory has to stay below 4,000. Two other factors that are also taken into consideration are bed utilisation at ICUs must be below 75 percent and 10 percent of the population must be fully vaccinated.
PPN is a four-phase road map to steer Malaysia out of the movement control and COVID-19 pandemic.
Following is the breakdown of new cases reported by the various states and federal territories yesterday:
Selangor recorded 6,120 cases, 4,060 (66.3 percent) of which involved close contacts. Negeri Sembilan reported 1,603 cases, 884 (55.1 percent) of which involved close contacts; while Kuala Lumpur reported 1,499 cases, 702 (47 percent) of which involved close contacts.
The following states recorded three-digit new cases yesterday: Kedah 695; Johor 599; Penang 509; Melaka 484; Sabah 370; Sarawak 363; Perak 344; Kelantan 255; and Pahang 222.
Terengganu, meanwhile, reported 70 cases, Putrajaya 53 cases and Labuan 26 cases. Perlis reported three cases.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a tweet yesterday that “new variants including Delta can cause an infection among close contacts within five seconds, compared to the minimum 15 minutes for previous variants, as they are airborne”.
In a post on his personal Facebook account on Wednesday, he said the COVID-19 infectivity rate or R0/Rt value remained at 1.20 nationwide. Putrajaya recorded the highest R0 value at 1.32, followed Terengganu 1.27 and Kedah 1.23.
The R0 value refers to the infectivity of the virus in a community. A steady R0 value of 0.5 will be required to flatten the COVID-19 infection curve.
THIS WEEK’S COVID-19 SCENARIO
This week’s daily breakdown of recovered cases is as follows: July 10 (5,910); July 11 (5,194), July 12 (5,041), July 13 (5,990), July 14 ( 6,377) and July 15 (6,095).
Following is this week’s daily breakdown of new cases, local transmissions and imported cases:
July 10 – new cases 9,353; local transmissions 9,342 (6,645 or 71.1 percent Malaysian citizens); imported cases 11.
July 11 – new cases 9,105; local transmissions 9,087 (7,438 or 81.9 percent citizens); imported cases 18.
July 12 – new cases 8,574; local transmissions 8,534 (7,087 or 83.0 percent citizens); imported cases 40.
July 13 – new cases 11,079; local transmissions 11,052 (9,143 or 82.7 percent citizens); imported cases 27.
July 14 – new cases 11,618; local transmissions 11,592 (9,659 or 83.3 percent citizens); imported cases 26.
July 15 – new cases 13,215; local transmissions 13,202 (10,845 or 82.1 percent citizens); imported cases 13.
The breakdown in fatalities is as follows:
July 10 – 87 cases (78 Malaysian citizens); brought in dead (BID) eight.
July 11 – 91 cases (86 citizens); BID 10.
July 12 – 102 cases (97 citizens); BID 14
July 13 – 125 cases (108 citizens); BID 16
July 14 – 118 cases (108 citizens); BID 13
July 15 – 110 (95 citizens); BID 15
The BID cases refer to deaths that occurred outside healthcare facilities, with the bodies testing positive for COVID-19 after RT-PCR tests were carried out.
The following is the breakdown in the number of new clusters reported this week:
July 10 – 29 (workplace 19, community five, high-risk group two and detention centre three);
July 11 – 19 (workplace 13, community five and high-risk group one);
July 12 – 16 (workplace five, community eight and high-risk group three);
July 13 – 23 (workplace 13 and community 10);
July 14 – 26 (workplace 15, community seven and high-risk group four);
July 15 – 26 (workplace 15, community six, education two and detention centre three).
GLOBAL COVID-19 STATISTICS
The total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide, according to Worldometer, at the time of writing this article stood at 189,733,766 (185,906,966 cases at the same time last Friday) and deaths 4,083,108 (4,076,935 last Friday). The total number of recoveries stood at 173,146,248.
Some 216 countries are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and those in the top 10 of the list are the United States, India, Brazil, France, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Colombia and Italy.
The breakdown is as follows: United States 34,887,155 cases (624,214 deaths); India 31,025,875 (412,563); Brazil 19,262,518 (539,050); Russia 5,882,295 (146,069); France 5,833,341 (111,429); Turkey 5,507,455 (50,415); United Kingdom 5,281,098 (128,593); Argentina 4,719,952 (100,250); Colombia 4,565,372 (114,337); and Italy 4,275,846 (127,831).
China, where the outbreak was first reported at end-December 2019, is now at the 102nd spot in the list of countries affected by COVID-19 with 92,147 cases while its death toll remained at 4,636.
Besides Malaysia, the four other Southeast Asian nations that have joined the list of 98 countries with more than 100,000 cases are Indonesia (15th spot) with 2,726,803 cases and 70,192 deaths, the Philippines (23th spot) with 1,490,665 cases and 26,314 deaths, Thailand (58th spot) with 381,907 cases and 3,099 deaths and Myanmar (81th spot) with 212,545 and 4,345 deaths.
Cambodia (111th spot) has reported 64,611 cases and 1,025 deaths; Singapore (112th spot) 62,852 cases and 36 deaths; Vietnam 42,288 cases and 207 deaths; Laos 3,092 cases and four deaths; and Brunei 282 cases and three deaths.
COVID-19 BACKGROUND
The World Health Organisation’s China country office was informed of cases of pneumonia that were detected in Wuhan on Dec 31, 2019. On Jan 7, the Chinese authorities confirmed that the newly detected novel coronavirus can be transmitted from human to human.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-COV).
A study of the virus’ genetic sequence suggested similarities to that seen in snakes and bats. China health officials identified the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan as the source of the transmission of the coronavirus.
On Feb 11, 2020, WHO announced the official name of the virus, COVID-19, which is an acronym for coronavirus 2019 – CO stands for corona, VI for virus and D for disease.
On Jan 30, 2020, WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global emergency and on March 11, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.
WHO has described the COVID-19 outbreak as much more dangerous than the A H1N1 Influenza, also known as Swine Flu.
Swine Flu, which occurred between January 2009 and August 2010, infected more than 1.6 million people and caused 18,449 fatalities. It was first detected in Mexico and later in the United States in March 2009.
COVID-19 was detected in Malaysia on Jan 25, 2020, when three Chinese citizens, who had entered Malaysia through Johore from Singapore on Jan 23, were tested positive for the disease.
New variants of the COVID-19 coronavirus have since emerged in the United Kingdom (identified as B117) in September 2020, South Africa (501Y.V2) in October 2020 and India (B.1.617), also in October last year.
Translated by Rema Nambiar
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