AS the country grapples with an upsurge in Covid-19 cases, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said there is a need for a circuit breaker to reduce new infections.

“We need a circuit breaker to bring down the cases from 2,000 down to 200 before we can manage the situation better,” he said in a press conference today.

Noor Hisham said it is important to contain the spread of the coronavirus, as the ministry re-strategises and looks for new measures to manage the increasing patient load.

He said cases are expected to increase in the next one two weeks after the New Year, due to the easing of the travel ban on December 7.

He added that while cases did not rise to as much as 4,000 per day, the r-naught, which is still above 1.0, has yet to decline to 0.5.

In addition, low risk treatment centres (PKRC) are also reaching its brim.

“When we have an increased load of patients, obviously the quality of care will deteriorate,” he said.

“A few PKRC have reported (issues) in terms of food, services, hygiene.”

“This is a challenging time for the Health Ministry, to manage a large number of patients ourselves. We are working with NADMA, NSC (National Security Council) etc,” he added.

He said discussions are ongoing and authorities are finding solutions to improve the situation.

Malaysia yet again set a new record for daily cases with 2,593 cases reported in the past 24 hours.

The fresh cases have brought the caseload to 125,438 while active cases stood at 24,347. – January 6, 2021.