The curve of COVID-19 infections could be flattened again by May!
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is expecting to control the infection rate in 12 weeks now that the Movement Control Order (MCO) has been reintroduced.
"We're on the right track and we hope all Malaysians will stay home and continue to follow SOPs, especially if they're stepping out," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham says the trend in the number of daily cases may not go down in just two weeks of MCO, but they are hoping to at least prevent the figure from increasing further.
The Health Ministry (MOH) has projected four to five weeks to reduce the daily cases to between 1,000 and 500.
On whether the MCO, which started yesterday (January 13th), would be extended, Dr Noor Hisham says it would only last a maximum of four weeks.
He explained the government doesn’t want the MCO to be prolonged due to its negative impact on the economy.
However, Dr Noor Hisham pointed out that the MCO would be followed by another Conditional MCO (CMCO) period to achieve their target of flattening the curve, as a CMCO is a less severe form of restriction compared to the full MCO.
He did not commit to a fixed timeline of how long the MCO or CMCO would go.
Meanwhile, daily COVID-19 cases continue to remain in the four-digits at 2,985 new infections yesterday.
This brings our overall tally to 144,518 cases, with 32,377 cases still active.
Four more people succumbed to the virus, raising the death toll to 563.
Let's work together to flatten the curve!
by Roshini Ravindran
