Fourth wave of Covid-19 in Malaysia a real possibility, warns senior minister Ismail Sabri

PUTRAJAYA — Malaysia is at risk of a fourth wave of the coronavirus that has infected over 350,000 people and caused over 1,300 deaths across the country, senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Monday (April 12).

The defence minister who is also in charge of Covid-19 cluster matters said the information was derived from the health ministry’s risk assessment over the past 14 days in states under the conditional movement control order (CMCO) and recovery movement control order (RMCO).

“Overall, the ministry has confirmed that Covid-19 cases in most states are presently not stable, with its R0 increasing past one,” he said in a news broadcast.

“Presently, only Kelantan and Sarawak show an increasing trend of infections,” he said.

He added that Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Pahang and Labuan have shown fluctuations in infection rates over the past two weeks; on some days, the number of cases go up, and on other days, the cases drop.

Perlis, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor, Terengganu and Sabah have shown a decline in their infection rates, he said.

However, he said there were still many red zones in states that showed an overall decline of infections, such as Selangor.

“KL still has many red and orange zones. Johor has reduced cases with fewer red zones and more green zones. Penang has a high rate of incidents and many red zones. Kelantan is increasing in incidents and trends with additional red zones, and Sarawak is increasing in the number of incident rates and additional red zones,” he said.

Listing the other states one by one, Mr Ismail said Kedah has a low rate of cases and that its red and orange zones were decreasing, except for Kuala Muda, which is still under CMCO.

Melaka has fewer cases and more yellow zones while Pahang remains unstable with its yellow and green zones decreasing.

Terengganu is stable with the number of green zones increasing.

On the other hand, Sabah is seeing a growth in the number of red zones while its green zones are decreasing while Labuan remains unstable with two orange zones and no yellow zones.

Putrajaya has no red zones while the only state that is entirely green is Perlis. MALAY MAIL