"Fully Into Omicron Wave" – Malaysia Will Soon Hit 15,000 Daily COVID-19 Cases Again
The country is expected to reach 22,000 cases by the end of March at the present infectivity rate.
By May Vin Ang — 07 Feb 2022, 11:23 AM
Malaysia is fully hit by the COVID-19 Omicron variant wave now, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin
In a tweet on Sunday, 6 February, he said the number of COVID-19 cases is expected to hit 15,000 a day soon.
The last time COVID-19 cases exceeded the 15,000 level in Malaysia was on 18 September last year, with 15,549 infections reported.
"There are still one million senior citizens in the country who have not received a booster dose. Please inform your beloved parents to get a booster dose immediately," he urged.
Khairy was responding to a Tweet by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, who shared a forecast of daily COVID-19 infections up to 31 March
They both called on the public to take their booster doses as Malaysia recorded 10,089 COVID-19 cases on Sunday, a steep hike past the 10,000 mark on top of a week of increasing infection numbers.
However, out of the 10,089 cases, 99.2% of patients were placed in Category 1 or 2, which means patients were asymptomatic or only presented with mild disease.
"At the present infectivity rate R-naught (R0) of 1.2, we expect to reach 22,000 cases by end of March 2022," said Dr Noor Hisham.
"Hence, the onus is on us to comply to all the public health and social measures, [and increase] the vaccination and booster shot coverage to reduce the transmission and lower the infectivity rate to less than one."
The Health Minister explained that the main purpose of booster shots are to reduce the severity of symptoms should anyone get infected
"With a booster dose, you have better protection against serious symptoms that can lead to hospitalisation or intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Take the booster," Khairy repeated in a later tweet.
According to COVIDNOW, a total of 12,361,663 individuals or 52.8% of the adult population in the country have received their COVID-19 booster shots as of writing.
