PUTRAJAYA, Oct 20 — The implementation of conditional movement control order (CMCO) in Selangor for one week, has shown some positive signs in reducing the R-naught (RO) for Covid-19 in the state.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Selangor had managed to bring down the infectivity rate from 1.98 to 1.48 thus far.

“But we need to do better without changing the strategy of CMCO, (which) allowed the economy sector to function. We need to step up, tighten the social sector such as the sport sector (and) education sector.

“So that if they (social sector) can be put on hold for a week or two, then I think we can improve using the strategy of CMCO to bring down the RO or bring down the cases,” he said in Covid-19 press conference at the Ministry of Health (MOH) here today.

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He further explained that the decision to go for CMCO was to strike a right balance between health and economy as well as between life and livelihood.

“We decided to adopt this strategy by using CMCO instead of MCO. MCO will probably work in a shorter period of time but the cost to the country is that all economic sectors are put on hold.

“If we can reduce and control the movement of people especially in Selangor, then that would be a solution. But how successful we are, depends on whether we can stay at home, and break the chain of infection. With less people to control means we can break the transmission,” he added.

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Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said MOH was able to track 90 per cent of the infections in Selangor to their clusters via the tracing application MySejahtera which helped contain positive cases.

He said the application enables KKM to trace the positive cases whether in Selangor or outside the state.

Dr Noor Hisham said MOH is closely monitoring all Covid-19 patients who have recovered to look at the long-term effects for example if lung lesions could cause breathing difficulties.

On whether Covid-19 patients who recovered having health complications, Dr Noor Hisham said for patients with mild infection or asymptomatic, the side effects would not be so prominent.

Dr Noor Hisham said the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) is also studying the antibodies of patients.

He said antibodies against a virus would be built after a person was infected but the question is for how long would the antibodies remain in the body.

He said initial studies showed the antibodies would diminish after eight weeks.

Asked on the efforts of the Selangor state government to conduct screening tests, Dr Noor Hisham said the state should work with the state health department to coordinate the activity rather than working in silos.

He said coordination between the state health department and main office is a holistic approach to solve issues, challenges and to share information. — Bernama