MALAYSIA has set the benchmark on how to respond to the Covid-19 crisis for other countries, said director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said prior to this, no one in the country, not even the health experts, had experience in managing a pandemic.

However, after 10 months of battle with the coronavirus, Malaysia had set the standard for others to emulate, he said.

“None of us in this country, let it be private or public sectors, including public health experts in private sectors, had any experience at all in handling a pandemic,

“But now we have had 10 months’ experience and we are learning from neighbouring countries.

“There is no benchmark for managing a pandemic. We are creating benchmarks because many countries are learning from us in terms of how we handled the second wave, for example.

“This shows that we are setting the standard and hopefully the actions we have taken will be a model for other countries to follow,” he said yesterday in Putrajaya.

He was answering a question from health experts on what Putrajaya hoped to achieve with the conditional movement-control order (CMCO) for nearly all of the country.

They said the daily cases did not show significant changes in most states.

In response, Noor Hisham said there were two schools of thought on how to respond to the outbreak at the onset.

He said public health experts had suggested the methods of herd immunity or prevention and control.

“We in Malaysia embraced prevention and control, meaning to prevent individuals from being infected. So that is our concept. This is only the concept but we are not sure which is right and wrong.

“Having gone through the last 10 months, we can see today that in countries that use the prevention and control method, the cases are more contained and well managed that the cases in those that embrace herd immunity.”

Hence, Noor Hisham said a a near-blanket CMCO was the best option for both health and economy.

He said the CMCO was also to protect the green zones.

He cited Selangor as an example, where infections had spread and more districts have become red zones.

He said the situation in Selangor would have been worse if quick action had not been taken,

“When we look at the cases now on the peninsula, they are widespread. When we started CMCO in Selangor, there were a lot of objections. That was proactive and pre-emptive action taken despite the objections we had.

“Look at the cases now. If we had not implemented CMCO earlier, the scenario here would be worse than in Sabah. The data is showing that in Selangor, because of the density, mobility and distribution of cases, (infections) are not only in one area but well distributed in states.”

He said it took Malaysia nearly three months to control the infection in the second wave.

“In the second wave, we took three months to control the case but now we’re giving ourselves three weeks to see whether we can achieve that.

“It’s a big challenge for us and the third wave is much more challenging than the second but certainly we are more prepared in terms of knowledge and preparation.” – November 12, 2020.