Malaysia’s latest Covid-19 R0 climbs to 1.04; Health DG expects new infections to rise

KUALA LUMPUR (June 30): The basic reproduction number (R-naught or R0) for Covid-19 infections nationwide has risen to 1.04 as at June 29, according to Health Director-General (DG) Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pictured) in his tweet today.

The Health DG posted a chart showing that Malaysia’s Covid-19 infections now have reversed their downtrend, heading for 6,000 daily cases in the first half of July.

Based on the current Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) projection, forecast new cases could breach the 7,000-mark if non-compliance continues and R0 climbs to 1.2.

The national R0 number has been going up since June 26, when it stood at 0.97, to 0.99 on June 27, 1.00 on June 28 and 1.04 yesterday.

Looking at the latest data, Pahang recorded the highest R0 at 1.17, followed by Putrajaya (1.11), Melaka (1.10), Perak (1.09) Kuala Lumpur (1.08), Negeri Sembilan (1.08), and Selangor (1.02).

The R0/Rt data projects the average number of people that each new Covid-19 patient will infect. Rt means the effective reproduction number. An Rt of less than 1.0 means the infection is not spreading.

Meanwhile, Malaysia reported 6,276 new Covid-19 cases today, down from 6,437 previously. This marks the second consecutive day that new cases stayed above the 6,000 level.

Selangor remained as the worst-hit state, reporting 2,836 cases, up from 2,299 yesterday.

Negeri Sembilan logged 644 cases (down from 700 previously), while Kuala Lumpur recorded 625 cases (down from 1,361 the day before).

Cumulatively, Malaysia’s confirmed infections increased to 751,979.

Malaysia is currently in Phase One of the National Recovery Plan. 

Note that in order to advance to Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan, the number of daily new Covid-19 cases in the country needs to be below 4,000.  

On top of that, the public health system should be out of the critical stage, with the rate of bed usage in intensive care units (ICUs) returning to moderate levels, and 10% of the population should have received two doses of vaccine.

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