Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 10, 2020

KUALA LUMPUR: The ministry of health (MoH) director- general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told the media yesterday that he will be briefing the Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today on whether the country needs a second extension for the movement control order (MCO).

Malaysia is currently in its second phase of MCO that will end onTuesday, after the initial one started from March 18 until March 31.

He said there was a meeting at 6pm yesterday with various agencies that included the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER), statisticians, and epidemiologists, to discuss this matter beforehand.

“We saw predictions from JP Morgan and MIER saying that Covid-19 cases in Malaysia will peak in mid-April.

“Looking at our cases as well as the statistics that we have, we will use various modelling methods, from that we can give an overview [on] whether we need to extend the MCO or not, and we will advise the PM and Cabinet for further action,” he said.

Meanwhile, the mortality rate in Malaysia was lower at 1.58% compared with other countries, Noor Hisham pointed out.

“Other countries have reported around 4.6% to 5.6% of mortality rate,” said Noor Hisham.

He mentioned the percentage of 1.58% shows that medical services provided in Malaysia either in the ward or in intensive care unit (ICU) are satisfactory and good.

“I would like to congratulate our specialists for providing such effective treatments to all patients in the ward and also ICU”, he said.

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