Dr Noor Hisham: Malaysia Records 13 New COVID-19 Clusters In The Past 10 Days
"What this shows is that the public has become complacent," said the Health D-G.
By May Vin Ang — 22 Jul 2020, 01:01 PM
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham said recent COVID-19 developments in Malaysia was worrying as the country recorded another 15 new infections yesterday, 21 July
Dr Noor Hisham said this brings the cumulative figure of positive cases to 8,815 cases, with 130 being currently active.
During the COVID-19 press conference, he said that the number of active cases had reduced to a low of 63 earlier this month on 9 July.
However, the progress appeared to have lost its ground as the number of active cases in the country has stayed above the 100-mark for the past three consecutive days.
"The recent COVID-19 situation is worrying as the number of reported daily cases continue to increase, particularly for local transmissions," he announced.
The Health D-G said there are presently 19 active clusters in Malaysia, of which 13 were recorded in just the last 10 days
According to the Ministry of Health (MOH) Twitter account, these are the 13 clusters that appeared in the country since 12 July:
- Engineering firm cluster in Kuching, Sarawak
- Novgorod cluster in Melaka and Selangor
- Mambong company cluster in Kuching and Samarahan, Sarawak
- Pitakwa cluster in Kemaman, Terrenganu
- Shirala cluster in Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur
- Medical centre cluster in Kuching, Sarawak
- Jupiter cluster in Bintulu, Sarawak
- Stutong wet market cluster in Kuching, Sarawak
- Sepang Rumah Kongsi cluster at a construction site in Selangor
- Brickfields restaurant cluster in Kuala Lumpur
- Kuching Jetty cluster in Sarawak
- Kluang old folks home cluster in Johor
- Sentosa cluster in Kuching, Sarawak
Dr Noor Hisham pointed out that nine of these clusters involved local infections that were not linked to imported cases.
"What this shows is that the public has become complacent, and in the process are not complying with the set standard operating procedures (SOP)," he said.
The MOH has also become concerned because the public is not vigilantly protecting their elderly family members from the coronavirus
Dr Noor Hisham said 69.1% of the total COVID-19 deaths in Malaysia were the elderly and the latest death involved an elderly patient from the Kluang old folks home cluster in Johor which had 11 cases testing positive recently.
He encouraged Malaysians to continue taking precautions such as wearing a face mask in public, keeping good hand hygiene, and practising social distancing.
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