KUALA LUMPUR, 16 JULY: On July 16, 2021, Dr. Ong Kian Ming, Member of Parliament for Bangi and Assistant Political Education Director for the Democratic Action Party (DAP), issued the following media statement, which is reproduced in its entirety.
Move Beyond the Daily COVID-19 Positive Cases Count – Pay attention to the percent of positive cases, the number and percent of serious cases, ICU admissions and capacity, and the number of deaths.
The number of COVID-19 cases discovered in the country reached a new high of 13,215 yesterday. While this figure would have alarmed most Malaysians, it is critical to place these figures in their appropriate context. More testing will uncover more positive instances, and with the right SOPs in place, the virus will be contained. Moving forward, it is critical to focus on more specific and relevant figures such as percent of positive cases, number and percent of serious cases, ICU admissions and capacity, and number of deaths rather than the total number of daily COVID-19 cases. Even if the number of cases remains high, there is hope for a gradual re-opening of various economic sectors safely and responsibly if the focus is on the right set of figures. Even with 80 percent of the adult population vaccinated, the number of cases in the UK has averaged close to 35,000 in the last seven days. What matters is that the number of serious infections and deaths, particularly within the vaccinated population, are extremely low. Even though the number of new COVID-19 cases remains high, this has allowed the UK economy to reopen.
In the 24 hours leading up to the COVID-19 positive daily figures released yesterday, a record number of tests — 134,569 — were conducted in Malaysia. While the COVID-19 positive rate remains high (9.8%), the method of increasing testing is the proper one to follow because it will allow for the detection of more COVID-19 positive individuals who can then be asked to quarantine at home (for non-serious cases) or sent to a hospital (for the more serious cases). It’s also worth noting that 96 percent of COVID-19 positive cases had either no symptoms (60.9 percent) or mild symptoms (96 percent) (35.1 percent ). Both of these groups of patients are asked to quarantine at home. Of course, this still leaves 531 instances in Category 3 (Symptomatic Patients with Lung Infection), Category 4 (Needing Oxygen Supplementation), and Category 5 (Needing Respiratory Support) (Critical Patients with Multiple Organ Complications). However, 531 cases appear to be far less’scary’ to the public than 13,215 cases, and they really paint a more accurate picture of COVID-19 patients’ impact on the health-care system.
As of July 14th, 12.65 million doses had been administered, accounting for 36% (first dose) and 17% (second dose) of the adult population. It is anticipated that all inhabitants in the Klang Valley who have registered for the vaccine will receive their first dosage on August 1st (excluding undocumented migrants) and will be fully vaccinated by the end of August. The number of cases should decrease as the number of immunizations continues to rise. During this period of transition, we must shift our focus away from the total number of daily instances. Instead, the public should be trained to focus on more essential and relevant statistics including the number of serious cases (Category 3 to 5), COVID-19-related mortality, and ICU capacity.
I urge the National Security Council (NSC) to stop focusing on the number of daily instances (4,000 is a rather arbitrary number), and instead shift its focus to the indications listed above, which can be used to assess when the economy can be steadily and safely opened up. Furthermore, any decision by the NSC to keep any sector of the economy closed must be founded on science and evidence, not on speculative fears about where clusters “may” form, such as in shopping malls or gyms./n
