STATE-RUN community testing as well as the overall failure to test, trace and isolate Covid-19 cases fast enough are the reasons for the high number of infections being detected in Selangor, said Selangor Covid-19 Task Force chairman Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.

He also said clusters originating from social gatherings such as from the recent Hari Raya celebrations and from religious gatherings have contributed to the rising numbers.

“Firstly, the numbers are contributed by our community testing, started as early as last year and all the more now, because we are doing mass testing aggressively. 

“We have already covered more than half of the 56 localities in Selangor.

“Secondly, the escalating numbers are actually a reflection of the inherent failures to test and trace fast enough, (leading to the) failure to isolate the positive cases of the workplace clusters, especially of the asymptomatic individuals,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The former health minister said as of Wednesday, Selcare – the administrator of the state’s healthcare programme – has conducted 81,971 RTK-Antigen tests and found 3,104 Covid-19 positive cases.

The surge in cases in the state, Dzulkefly said, was also exacerbated by asymptomatic Covid-19 patients taking part in social gatherings.

“Clusters originating from social gatherings such as the recent Hari Raya celebration (about 20%) or religious rites (about 18%) have also contributed to the rising numbers. 

“With them roaming around and infecting others inadvertently, new cases multiply quickly and are ‘sporadic’ or cases that are ‘unlinked’ to existing clusters.

“With these ‘spillovers’ to the community largely unchecked, for lack of testing, it is little wonder that the numbers remain high,” he said.

Selangor alone recorded more than 3,000 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, out of the 8,209 in total for the nation. It was the state’s highest ever in a day, and a continuation in the trend of recording the highest number of daily infections among all states for the last few months.

Dzulkefly said Malaysia’s Covid-19 positivity rate has also surpassed the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organisation.

Health Minister Dr Adham Baba revealed last month that Malaysia’s average positivity rate stands at 6.89%.

The positivity rate indicates the portion of positive Covid-19 cases detected out of the total tests conducted.

A higher positivity rate indicates that testing must be ramped up as it suggests that there are more people with the disease in the community who have not been detected yet.

“Getting higher than 5% means that there are still many positive cases that are not detected in the community or in the workplace clusters etc, that could very well be asymptomatic. 

“These groups of Category 1 (asymptomatic) patients that are either without or (with) very mild symptoms are left ‘roaming around’ unchecked. These individuals form a ‘infectious reservoir’ for further outbreaks or future clusters,” he said.

The federal government has been slow to roll out mass testing while it considers approval for home testing kits using the RTK-Ag and saliva-based test kits. It has preferred to focus testing on localities that have confirmed Covid-19 clusters using the enhanced movement-control order approach.

Public health experts and healthcare groups such as the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA), however, have been urging mass testing for some time. The MMA has reiterated several times its calls for the government to use private general practitioners located all over the country in mass screening.

Dzulkefly is hopeful that if more testing is conducted vigorously, Selangor will be able to flatten the curve, thus lessening the burden on the healthcare system.

“With our effort of intensifying mass testing, we hope to finally reduce daily numbers, hence ‘bend the pandemic curve’, to make it more manageable for our health facilities not to be overburdened. 

“We must also ensure that our frontliners are not too fatigued or overwhelmed, especially those working in the intensive care units and taking care of intubated patients under mechanical ventilators, and hopefully reduce the numbers on deaths or mortality.” – June 6, 2021.