IT is inaccurate to say that factories contributed to a bulk of the Covid-19 cases in Malaysia as only 6.1% of the infections reported between June and August this year were attributed to the manufacturing sector, said Mohamed Azmin Ali.

The Minister of International Trade and Industry said, while citing data from the Health Ministry’s Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC), that the manufacturing sector accounted for 30.2% or 761 of the 2,521 clusters reported during the period.

These clusters collectively reported 70,317 cases, which is only 6.1% of the cumulative national caseload of 1.15 million recorded at that time.

“The largest case contributor is sporadic cases, which accounts for close to 70% (of the caseload) and it is not part of any clusters,” he said in a Parliamentary written reply to Mukhriz Mahathir (Jerlun-Pejuang) on why more factories were allowed to operate in light of the rising cases.

Azmin added that only factories in critical essential sectors were allowed to operate under strict standard operating procedure (SOP) during the movement-control order (MCO).

“I would like to inform you that the government allowed certain sub-sectors in the manufacturing sector to operate after thorough scrutiny by the National Security Council,” he said.

He added that this was to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods.

Meanwhile, Karupaiya Mutusami [Padang Serai-PH) asked in a separate question whether a now-deleted tweet by the Health Ministry stating that factories were the largest contributors to cases in Selangor was correct.

Azmin responded that between June 1 and August 6, factories contributed 12,399 cases or 53.2% of the 23,321 total cases from clusters in Selangor.

Comparatively, the cases only made up for 4.7% of the cumulative total of 264,440 new cases reported in Selangor during that period.

“Therefore, the fact in the Health Ministry’s tweet dated August 6, 2021, that factories are the largest contributors of clusters in Selangor is true. But we had to look at it in further detail, based on cases, whereby only 4.7% from the cumulative total of new cases in Selangor for that period were from factories,” he said.

On August 6, Selangor state health director Dr Sha’ari Ngadiman said that factories contributed the highest number of Covid-19 clusters in the state in July, accounting for 54% of 180 active clusters.

He said there were 96 clusters linked to factories.

This was followed by services, construction and community clusters.

While the Health Ministry tweeted the information, which was disclosed at a press conference, the tweet was later taken down. – September 15, 2021.