THE government had no choice but to implement a total lockdown, after it projected daily Covid-19 cases would hit 13,000 by June 14, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

“We need the average number of cases over a period of seven days to make a projection on the future number of cases,” he said in a joint press conference with Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob today.

“However, if we look at our previous projection, we expected to see 13,000 cases on June 14,” he added.

Therefore, the government was forced to implement a total lockdown, which is as strict as the first MCO in March 2020, to curb movement and gatherings.

The total lockdown will start on June 1 and last until June 14.

He said cases have been on an uptrend with an infectivity rate of 1.16.

“It is not impossible to see an increase of 1,000 to 2,000 in cases,” he said while citing the records broken yesterday.

“We have seen 98 deaths on May 29, 2021 due to Covid-19. It is possible for the numbers to continue to rise,” he added.

Noor Hisham warned that hospitals are running out of beds and doctors may be forced to choose patients who are more likely to recover and survive for treatment at the ICU over the ones with poor prognosis.

He said the MCO, with proper implementation, can give hospitals and front-liners a breather and allow healthcare facilities to replenish their equipment needs.

In addition to that, he said the MCO also enables the government to conduct targeted screening.

“We will find, test, isolate and treat positive cases,” he said.

This, coupled with the tightening of border control and increased vaccination coverage, will flatten the curve of infection within four months.

Noor Hisham said there is still room for health authorities to step up their testing capacity.

He said in the last two days, over 58,000 tests had been conducted each day.

“The tests being conducted at private labs are currently below 55% of its capacity while at university hospitals it is below 15%. So we still have room to step up capacity,” he said.

Meanwhile, beds at intensive care units (ICU) allocated for Covid-19 cases had all been taken up after reaching a capacity of 104% (1,113 beds), while the overall ICU occupancy stood at 88% (1698).

Meanwhile, 65% of the 27,183 beds at low-risk quarantine centre have been taken up while 85% of the 10,190 beds at Covid-19 hospitals have been occupied.

About 60% of the 2,138 ventilators made available have been used. Of this, 39% was taken up by Covid-19 patients.

Noor Hisham said the shortage of manpower remains a challenge as many health personnel, including surgeons, have already been mobilised to treat Covid-19 patients. – May 30, 2021.