Noor Hisham said the health ministry was aware of the infections at the PPV but was still probing if the cluster was located at IDCC.
“The health ministry is still investigating the source of the infection. We will look at the epidemiological links from one case to another before naming the cluster,” he told a press conference today.
On Tuesday, it was revealed that 204 of the 453 staff members at the PPV had tested positive for Covid-19.
Netizens noticed that the Jalan Pahat 15 cluster reported yesterday was detected at Jalan Pahat 15/L in Shah Alam, the road where IDCC was located. However, the health ministry said this cluster only had 104 cases.
Noor Hisham also said the third movement control order (MCO 3.0) which was imposed nationwide in June had given the public health system some breathing space while boosting its bed capacity and equipment availability.
With the all-time high of infections being 9,020 on May 29, he said the ministry had projected that cases would reach 13,000 by June 14, but this was delayed thanks to MCO 3.0.
However, he noted that lockdowns were not the solution and emphasised that vaccinations needed to be ramped up in order to effectively bring down cases or congestion in hospitals.
“Although we’ve added more beds, the solution to lowering cases is by increasing vaccinations. The additional beds are only temporary to bear the surge in cases.
“If we can administer 150,000 second doses a day, we expect that cases should drop below 1,000 by October. So, it’s very important to see how we can boost vaccinations in the community,” he said.
Selangor health director Dr Sha’ari Ngadiman said that around 65% of patients in the state were Category 1 patients, followed by 20% in Category 2 and 15% in Category 3 to 5.
Category 1 and 2 patients can be treated at home or at low-risk quarantine centres, which will help lighten the burden on hospitals.
He also said that of the total cases in Selangor today, 67% were from close contact screenings, 14% from screenings on workers and 12% from individuals exhibiting symptoms.
He was responding to international trade and industry minister Azmin Ali’s assertion that only 5% to 10% of Covid-19 cases reported were linked to the manufacturing sector.
Citing how most health workers had already been immunised against Covid-19, Noor Hisham said most of the over 3,000 who had contracted Covid-19 were either asymptomatic or had light symptoms.
This, he said, exemplified how vaccination can prevent severity of the infection, with no need for patients to be admitted to the ICU or even hospitalised, alleviating congestion in hospitals.
With this, he added, the Covid-19 virus could soon be regarded like the common flu or H1N1, where patients need to only quarantine at home. “This is how we will live with the virus.”
Nevertheless, Noor Hisham reminded the public to be vigilant and careful in view of the Delta variant, warning that the Covid-19 mutation could infect others in just 15 seconds.
He added that the Delta variant’s infectivity rate, or R0/RT, was much higher at between 5 to 8, compared with 2.5 to 3 for the normal Covid-19 strain.
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