KUALA LUMPUR, April 3 — Malaysia now has four additional orange zones or Covid-19 hotspots just one category below red zones, the latest data released today by the Health Ministry shows.
With the addition of the districts of Sepang and Kuala Selangor in Selangor, the Alor Gajah district in Melaka and the Kota Samarahan district in Sarawak, the country now has a total of 20 orange zones as of April 2 noon.
According to the definition in the Health Ministry's own maps, orange zones are districts where between 20 and 40 cases have been recorded.
The four new orange zones
With Alor Gajah recording a total tally of 20 cases on April 2 up from 18 cases on April 1, Melaka now has all of its three districts marked as orange zones.
Sarawak, meanwhile, registered its first orange zone on April 2, with the increase of the Kota Samarahan district's tally from 12 cases on April 1 to 20 cases as of April 2.
Kuala Selangor with its tally of 19 cases on April 1 crossed over into orange zone territory by recording a cumulative total of 26 cases on April 2, while Sepang which had a total tally of 17 cases on April 1 became an orange zone when it took on four additional cases the next day.
As of April 2 noon, the number of cases in Malaysia's 20 Covid-19 orange zones are: Cheras (37), Rembau (35), Seberang Perai Tengah (35), Lahad Datu (35), Putrajaya (34), Jerantut (33), Kuala Muda (31), Kota Kinabalu (29), Muar (28), Jasin (28), Timur Laut (27), Kuantan (27), Kuala Selangor (26), Kulai (24), Kota Setar (23), Melaka Tengah (22), Pekan (21), Sepang (21), Alor Gajah (20), and Kota Samarahan (20).
The significance of being an orange zone is that it sometimes only takes several cases for a district or area to tip over and be recategorised as a red zone, with red zones being districts that have 41 cases and above.
Malaysia's top red zone is Hulu Langat again
For the fourth consecutive day now, Hulu Langat in Selangor is the district with the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia.
Hulu Langat's total tally of Covid-19 cases increased from 273 on April 1 to 287 on April 2.
The two other top red zones in the country are also in the Klang Valley: the Lembah Pantai district in Kuala Lumpur which recorded an increase in its total tally from 249 cases on April 1 to 274 cases on April 2, while the Petaling district in Kuala Lumpur had an increase in its tally of 242 cases on April 2 to 274 cases on April 2.
No new red zones have been recorded as of April 2, which means Malaysia still has a total of 16 red zones spread out across seven states and a federal territory.
In the latest data as of April 2, the number of Covid-19 cases in the 16 red zones are: Hulu Langat (287), Lembah Pantai (274), Petaling (274), Kuching (141), Seremban (139), Johor Bahru (125), Kluang (122), Kepong (96), Kota Bahru (82), Titiwangsa (81), Klang (80), Kinta (79), Gombak (70), Tawau (63), Hilir Perak (61), Batu Pahat (48).
These 16 red zones alone account for a total of 2,022 Covid-19 cases.
In other words, nearly 65 per cent of the 3,116 Covid-19 cases detected in Malaysia as of April 2 have been recorded in just these 16 red zones.
Although being designated as a red zone does not necessarily mean more restrictions of movement by the government to curb the spread of Covid-19, villages or even buildings — with a very high concentration of Covid-19 cases — in red zones can be put under tighter control to enable the government to carry out door-to-door Covid-19 detection activities.
So far the government has issued three enhanced movement control of orders (EMCO) on two villages in Simpang Renggam in the red zone of Kluang in Johor, seven villages in the red zone of Hulu Langat, and a condominium in Kuala Lumpur.
Still 31 green zones
There has been no change to the number of green zones or districts in Malaysia with zero Covid-19 cases, with the tally still at 31 as of April 2, unchanged from April 1.
The 31 green zones are spread out over six states: including one district each in four states in peninsular Malaysia, nine districts in Sabah and 18 districts in Sarawak.
Originally, however, in the first batch of data released by the Health Ministry, Malaysia had a total of 39 districts in seven states on March 25 that had zero Covid-19 cases.
The Health Ministry has started a campaign to empower communities to bear the shared responsibility of making districts in Malaysia free of Covid-19 cases.
A poster by the Health Ministry’s MyHealth portal had encouraged communities in green zones to protect their community and maintain their green zone status by taking various steps, including to limit and record the entry and exit of visitors and local residents, to report to the community leader or police when group activities are detected, to mobilise the existing residents' committee as a coordinator for Covid-19 prevention activities in the community, and to report any suspected Covid-19 cases to authorities.
As of yesterday noon, Malaysia has a total cumulative tally of 3,116 Covid-19 cases and total tally of 50 deaths.
Yesterday also saw Malaysia charting its highest number of Covid-19 patients who had recovered and were discharged in a day at 122.
