News by Emir Zainul

Noor Hisham pointed to the World Health Organization's (WHO) prediction that Malaysia will still be at “war” with Covid-19 even until next year, unless a vaccine for the coronavirus is found and made available to the public.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham said this may help the ministry detect infections among communities with cases of Covid-19. 

The infections are in three hospitals in the state, namely Hospital Queen Elizabeth 2, Women's and Children Hospital in Likas and Hospital Keningau.

Meanwhile, 135 patients were discharged as of noon today, bringing total recoveries to 3,102 or 58.5% of the total number of cases, which is 5,305.

"We haven't decided on that (exit strategy) yet, it will be determined by the NSC. But there will be consultations and indications that will be given by the Health Ministry and we will discuss this together [with the NSC].

"So far we have not seen a cluster formation [among foreign workers], but the screenings are actually a continuous process."

Noor Hisham said that since Malaysia is currently dealing with the second wave of the outbreak - whereby most of the infections are from imported cases through Malaysians returning from abroad, he did not rule out the possibility that all three variants of the coronavirus are present in the country.

"Our policy here in Malaysia, positive patients whether they have symptoms or not, we make sure that they are isolated in the hospitals so that we can actually monitor them closely."

Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah: Today was supposed to be the peak [according to the prediction] but we have not seen a peak in terms of the graph, so perhaps we have managed to flatten the curve. 

As of yesterday, the government is capable of conducting up to 11,500 tests daily, across 43 laboratories in the country. When the pandemic first started, the daily testing capacity was at 3,500.