Health Ministry Projects a Spike of 6,000 Additional Active COVID-19 Cases in the Next Week

By Charmaine Shaharin  •  05 Nov 2020 in News

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Even with the CMCO and travel bans enforced, the number of COVID-19 cases is still rising in Malaysia leading the health ministry to project that the country will see a spike of 6,000 additional active cases in the coming week. At the moment, there are about 10,000 active cases in the country.

According to health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in News Straits Times, the rise in cases in the upcoming week will surpass the earlier forecast of 5,000 cases within a two-week period by experts from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). This was due to enhanced public health intervention in the field, he said.

“The university had expected 5,000 cases, but we projected 6,000 cases. Even with 800 to 900 cases being reported every day, we will exceed the earlier figures,” the DG said during his daily press conference.

“We managed to bring the R-naught (R0) from 2.2 to 1.0 in more than a two-week period, so we can further bring the infectivity rate to 0.5 in another two to three weeks,” he continued.

Even with the rising cases, Dr Hisham still remains hopeful that the numbers will decrease and urged the public to follow the SOPs and to stay at home and go out only when it is needed.

The health ministry will issue a statement soon on the projected spike.

Yesterday (Nov 4), Malaysia reported 1,032 new COVID-19 cases and eight new fatalities. Malaysia now records 35,425 cases in total including recoveries and 271 deaths.