PUTRAJAYA must improvise its Covid-19 contact tracing to tackle the current surge in cases, or it could end up worse, said Teo Nie Ching today. 

The former deputy education minister, in a joint statement with Dr Goh Aik Ping, a general practitioner, said with the virus already existing in the community, the government should speed up the contact tracing process. 

“The Health Ministry and the National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, needs to drastically improvise on contact tracing methods in terms of speed and urgency as more people are carrying the virus now.  

“Lack of efficiency in this area will lead to the spreading of the virus to a point where we would not be able to control,” the Kulai MP said, adding that late measures would leave Malaysian’s effort and discipline during the first movement-control order in vain. 

Malaysia has gone to record more than 5,000 daily cases in the past three days, with Selangor contributing the highest cases for the three respective days. 

Teo and Goh also offered several suggestions to improvise. 

They said the government must execute and implement extensive Covid-19 screening using the antigen rapid test kit (RTK-Ag) for those with symptoms, those living in vulnerable areas, vulnerable age groups, as well as close contacts to positive cases.

They added that all close contacts must be presumed as a positive patient until proven otherwise and that they must undergo immediate home quarantine and Covid-19 screening. 

“Immediate treatment should be provided for patients with mild symptoms if RTK-Ag shows a positive result, and later confirm again with a polymerase chain reaction test,” the duo said. 

Teo and Goh also said GPs needed to be roped in to treat and follow up with Covid-19 patients displaying mild symptoms.

They said GPs should also be authorised to issue a home surveillance or quarantine order. 

This could be easily achieved by developing a standardise nationwide database and system, which would allow all GPs to regularly update patient data, health conditions, quarantine status and discharge matter into the system, adding that failure to report will result in being penalised, they said.

They also said the government could deploy the armed forces to help with contact tracing and check compliance with HSO by making calls and regular messaging. 

The ministry, in a circular dated January 13, said Covid-19 tests will be done only on symptomatic individuals identified as close contacts of a positive case.

The samples will be based on the cohort size, which is the number of individuals exposed to the positive case.

The circular said it was sufficient for up to 20 samples to be taken for a cohort size of fewer than 50 people.

The DAP lawmaker and Goh also suggested that during the current pandemic, the government must ensure all Covid-19 Assessment Centres to operate seven days a week, and that their 24-hour hotline together with the district health offices to be improved. 

They urged the government to conduct a strict selection of effective Covid-19 vaccines and accelerate the process of national immunisation and inform the progress to the public from time to time. – February 1, 2021.