FORMER Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak cautioned the public not to celebrate too soon over the dipping number of daily COVID-19 infections.
“Malaysians welcome the lower number of daily infection cases but they have the right to know that the figures are going down because the Government had reduced testing capacity.
“Ever wondered why daily COVID-19 infection cases are dropping but the number of new clusters keep going up?
“This is a public health crisis and I urge the Health Ministry to announce the number of testing done when announcing the daily COVID-19 update,” he said, in a Facebook post.
Yesterday, the MOH announced that 2,176 new COVID-19 cases were detected, which is drop in three consecutive days.
However, the number of clusters detected has been in the two-digit mark, mostly affecting workplace areas.
Touching the matter, Najib said as per the information he had received, the MOH is no longer testing all close contacts and merely focused on those who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms.
“And we know that almost 80% of those infected by the virus remain asymptomatic for some time,” he added.
The former premier then warned that the nation’s “positivity rate” was still high, above the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Last month, the MOH did tell us that our ‘positivity rate’ is above 5%, indicating that the virus is spreading fast among the community,” the Pekan MP remarked. – Feb 16, 2021.
