At a press conference today, he said Selangor’s R0 value initially stood at 1.98, but had been brought down to approximately 1.48 since the CMCO was implemented on Oct 14.

He said this meant recent lockdown restrictions had been effective in bringing down the infectivity rate in the Klang Valley.

Despite the progress, Noor Hisham said it was still “not good enough” and the R0 value had to be brought down further to 0.3 before Selangor could ease restrictions.

He said the health ministry was working to bring it down by increasing its public health intervention and active case detection.

He also urged Malaysians to help the ministry battle the surge of cases in the Klang Valley by complying with the SOPs and staying at home whenever possible.

“The challenge in Selangor is the density and mobility of the population, so we need the cooperation of the public to stay at home.”

However, Noor Hisham said that even if the R0 value stayed above 1.0, it was still too early to consider an extension of the current CMCO in the Klang Valley.

“We still have one week to look into the data. Every day is important for us to see the progress, where we are and where we will be in one week’s time.

“For areas where there are high incidences (of positive cases) like in Semporna, we can do a targeted enhanced movement control order (TEMCO),” he said.

On a separate note, Noor Hisham said research is continuously being carried out on former Covid-19 patients to learn more about the virus.

“The Institute for Medical Research (IMR) is monitoring Covid-19 patients who have recovered to discover the long-term effects of the virus.

“These tests will also help us learn more about the antibodies produced when a patient is infected,” he said.

Noor Hisham added that so far, researchers found that the antibodies would reduce after eight weeks from the first date of infection.

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