We ended Week 10 of the MCO with 610 cases for the week, significantly higher than those of the past 5 weeks. As can be seen from the chart, there is a 2.7 times increase in the number of cases for the week compared to those for the week before. For those of us who have a curve-fitting model, I can tell you that it screws up the model and makes you want to surrender. Mathematically you can only account for this with a discontinuity – a black swan event.
How many other black swans are there?
- Detention centres - we have 14 detention centres nationwide and 4 temporary ones in Sabah. The detainee cases so far have been from 3 centres. Then the Padang Besar Immigration, Customs, Quarantine, Security complex was yesterday reported to be temporarily closed after 6 Thai students who passed through the checkpoint were confirmed Covid 19 positive.
- Prisons - I don’t have current data, but the past 3 yrs prison population is around 60,000 to 70,000 (Source: World Prison Brief website). I understand MOH is going to conduct tests there.
- Old folks’ home – this should not be a black swan item as MOH has identified 11,100 residents and staff and taken 9,429 samples as of 25 May with 23 positives.
Of course, we all know why we have this spike in MCO week 10 – it is due to an oversight of not looking into the risk of infections among the detainees. Since there is a 1 to 2 weeks incubation period, whatever should have been done to mitigate this risk should have been done just at the start of the CMCO.
But if you will all recall at that juncture, the “expert” comments were about the risk of a third wave from the relaxation of the MCO and people going back to work. I surely did not see any “expert” opinion about testing the detainees and others in captive situations.
MOH has assured us that this spike is not due to the Raya holidays (this one will come in 2 weeks' time if any) but rather due to those in the detention centres. Indirectly MOH message is that this will not lead to a re-introduction of stricter measures i.e. another MCO.
I don’t often accept what MOH said, but this time I agree. It is not time yet for another panic buying.
I think it is worthwhile reminding ourselves why we went into MCO in the first place – this was due to the confluence of three items:
- The Tabligh cluster where with 16,000 participants who dispersed all over the country, MOH had contact tracing problems. To its credit, it realized that it could not isolate the attendees and their contacts in time to prevent an exponential growth
- The fear of an infection wave from those coming back from going overseas to Korea, Hong Kong, Italy during the March school holidays. MOH cited a case where one ministry had 8,000 approved leave. OK, this did not materialize but we couldn’t have known it then.
- We were still scaling up our medical capacity then
I am very sure you will all agree that we don’t have such intersecting situation currently as
- The detainees are mainly in “captivity”. Even the MAEPS centre that has been turned into a treatment centre for the detainees have be placed under EMCO-like condition
- There is no unknown wave coming. Ha! There is speculation but I think nobody takes the Raya cluster seriously enough to have another clampdown before any evidence of such a cluster
- Finally, our medical system to treat Covid 19 patients currently has lots of unused capacity.
25 May. (Refer to Has all the additional Covid 19 testing capacity gone into testing for new cases? NO) I found that only about 1/3 if the testing capacity was for testing for daily new cases. So where has all the balance capacity been deployed? I had offered one possible answer then i.e. for re-testing those under quarantine, but this could not account for all the balance.
Then I saw a MOH Facebook posting on 26 May which said that its maximum test capacity was 27,667 and that the day before it had conducted 15,083 samples (55% equivalent). It occurred to me that maybe not all the testing capacity has been deployed. You can imagine this being possible given the targeted testing programme i.e. if most of the members of the targeted groups have been tested, the staff on the ground may not know who else to test resulting in unused capacity. I hope this is not the case as it would be a waste.
15 and 16 May. (Refer to Hey, Where Did The Malaysian Test Numbers Data Go ? and The Continued "Mystery" Of Malaysia's Missing Testing Data PLUS...An Open Question To Any Epidemiologists Out There... ) I noticed that the cumulative number of tests reported by Worldodometer remained unchanged from 11 to 14 May at 271,721 tests. Then on 15 May, there was a jump in the cumulative number to 424,306 which was equivalent to an increase of 152,582 tests for the 4 days period. It was an anomaly then, but I now have the answer.
According to MOH, the lab data from all sources – MOH, universities, MOSTI, army and the private sector – have been streamlined using a Public Health Lab Info System (SIMKA) causing a jump in the number of tests for 15 May. It makes you wonder about the accuracy/reliability of the data before this date. I hoped the authorities did not rely on these data alone to make policy decisions. Could this be why we had conflicts about allowing the barbers and salons to open?
Moral of the story – data-based analyses don’t lie unless of course there is an error in the analyses.
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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia
Disclaimer:
I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist or staff in the
Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical
analysis. The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in
the battle against Covid 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions
expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public
sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be
relied on as such.
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