Dr Noor Hisham: Malaysia’s Covid-19 infectivity rate below 1.0 for second consecutive day

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the effective reproduction number (R0/Rt) for Covid-19 infections in Malaysia yesterday stood at 0.97, with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 0.96 - 0.98.

On Twitter, he shared several slides on the statistics of Covid-19 in Malaysia. One of these is the R-value, from May 15 until yesterday, with a peak of 1.21 on May 23.

The R0/Rt must be below 1.0 in order to Covid-19 to be suppressed.

The R-value chart also indicated a downward trajectory for the past two weeks, from the highest point at 1.16 and steadily dropping, with yesterday and Sunday (June 6) below the 1.0 value.

In terms of R0 for states, the Labuan Federal Territory stood the highest at 1.26 with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 1.21 - 1.32. This is followed by Negri Sembilan with 1.17 and a a 95 per cent confidence interval of 1.14 - 1.19, and Sabah at 1.16, with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 1.12 - 1.20.

Meanwhile the lowest state is Perlis at 0.92 and a 95 per cent confidence interval of 0.75 - 1.12, followed by Putrajaya Federal Territory with 0.93 and a 95 per cent confidence interval of 0.83 - 1.04, and Kedah with 0.95 and a 95 per cent confidence interval of 0.92 - 0.97.

Sunday's R0 value on Monday (June 6) stood at 0.99, with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 0.98 - 1.00.

Yesterday, Malaysia recorded 5,271 new Covid-19 cases, dropping below the 6,000 mark for the first time in weeks.

However Selangor still has the highest number of cases by state, at 1,374, followed by Sarawak with 703, Negri Sembilan with 571, and Kuala Lumpur with 455. Only Perlis and Labuan recorded single-digit new infections with one and eight cases respectively.

The Health Ministry also recorded 82 deaths from Covid-19 yesterday, bringing the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 3,460 since it began early last year.