MORE than 1,800 people who have completed home quarantine under Home Surveillance Orders (HSO) did not take their second required Covid-19 test, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

He said to date, 31,674 people had been placed under HSO, of which 18,416 have completed the 14-day period.

“However, of this number (those who completed), 10% did not undergo Covid-19 screening on the 13th day,” he told reporters in Putrajaya today.

Noor Hisham lamented the lack of compliance by some of those under HSO, adding that one in four under HSO also did not use tools meant for self assessment in the MySejahtera app.

The Home Assessment Tool on the app is meant for those under HSO to assess themselves daily while under home quarantine, but data from the app taken between July 7 and 20 showed that 24.8% of them did not use this function.

Noor Hisham said this showed a lack of compliance to the HSO and also expressed concern that some of these individuals had flouted their quarantine by going out to public places.

“Of late, photographs are going viral on social media of several individuals who are under HSO but are found to be out in public places,” he said.

Use of the MySejahtera app, which is meant to help with contact tracing, has also dropped, he added.

Downloads of the app had increased in the last three weeks, yet not all who downloaded it were using the app for check-ins at public premises.

“Many are now eating at restaurants, going shopping and returning to office for work. 

“However, analysis from the MySejahtera app shows that even though the number of people downloading the app in the last three weeks has increased, the number of people registering to enter shops, supermarkets and other places is on the decline.

“This shows that compliance to standard operating procedures has been deteriorating.”

Noor Hisham also reminded owners of premises and the public to continue to SOP compliance to break the chain of infection.

Since July 1, 15 new clusters have been detected, while new infections have returned to double digits after a short spell in single-digits.

Noor Hisham said there is a possibility the emergence of the new clusters is linked to the lack of compliance.

The country’s r-naught (R0), which is the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case, has increased from less than 0.3 during the movement-control order (MCO) to 1.36 currently.

If the R0 rises to 1.6, Malaysia could see a sudden spike infection, he said.

Prior to the enforcement of the MCO, the R0 stood at 3.55. – July 23, 2020.