PETALING JAYA: It was a week of some cheer for many Malaysians as the government announced more relaxations to Covid-19 restrictions, with cinemas set to reopen and indoor sports activities being allowed to resume.
Klang Valley residents had more reason to be happy as the region transitioned to Phase 2 of the recovery plan from Friday, thanks to the ramping up of vaccinations.
Now, fully vaccinated residents may travel between districts without fear of roadblocks, while domestic tourism is allowed within the region.
However, the number of Covid-19 deaths remained high throughout the week, with a whopping 1,944 people dying from the pandemic in the past six days. This took the death toll to 19,827 as of Sept 10.
A total of 136,061 infections were reported over the week, bringing cumulative cases to 1,960,500. Of the total cases reported the past seven days, 2,150 were in Category 3, 4 or 5 at the point of diagnosis.
On a positive note, there were 150,479 recoveries in the past week, higher than the number of infections. A total of 242,161 active cases were still being treated as of Sept 10.
Some 233 new Covid-19 clusters were detected, while the national infection rate increased over the week from an R0 (R-nought) of 0.96 last Sunday to 0.99 on Friday.
The number of patients admitted to intensive care has also dropped after breaching the 1,000-mark for five consecutive days last week. Currently, 936 patients are in ICUs.
About 72% of adults in Malaysia have been fully vaccinated, while 90.5% have been given at least one dose. In terms of the total population, 64.9% have received their first dose while 51.6% are fully immunised.
These are the major headline stories about Covid-19 over the week.
Record brought-in-dead
On Sept 5, a record high number of 107 people who died from Covid-19 were brought-in-dead to hospitals.
Reducing this figure is among health minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s top priorities over the next 100 days in the post, and he aims to do this by ensuring that people in home quarantine are kept under surveillance by healthcare professionals.
On Thursday, he said that 86% of the 2,417 people brought-in-dead as of Aug 31 had not been under any kind of medical observation, whether by the health ministry or private healthcare.
‘Huge’ backlog of Covid-19 deaths
While daily Covid-19 deaths hovered above 300 for nearly the whole week, Khairy explained that a “huge backlog” of reported fatalities was one of the causes.
Because of this backlog, the deaths reported every day by his ministry do not include those which occurred in the past 24 hours. The backlog was caused by the need to confirm whether a deceased truly died of Covid-19.
He said the number of daily Covid-19 deaths in the Klang Valley is expected to drop over the next two to three weeks once the backlog is cleared.
Teenagers start getting their vaccines
The government started rolling out the vaccines for teenagers on Wednesday, with those in Sarawak the first to be immunised against Covid-19.
It will be followed by other states and federal territories that have vaccinated at least 80% of its adult population, such as Labuan, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.
The health ministry will start offering the vaccines to teens aged 16 and 17 as well as those aged 12 to 15 who are immunocompromised, before vaccinating the younger teens in stages, starting with those aged 14 and 15 next, then 12 and 13.
Khairy yesterday said the health ministry expects to vaccinate all teenagers before schools open for the 2022 term in January.
MoH launches Covid-19 website
On Thursday, the health minister announced the launch of https://covidnow.moh.gov.my/ as part of his pledge for a more transparent and open ministry with the release of more detailed, granular data.
Khairy said the website will be the “single source of truth” from the health ministry from now on, while the current daily Covid-19 reports will be replaced by a simpler style.
The new website was largely welcomed by netizens and politicians, who praised its user-friendly layout and the way it included the number of tests conducted daily. - FMT
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