Malaysia to enter Guinness Book of Records for the country with the most contact tracing apps?

We had another spike in cases yesterday to 103 from 10 cases the day before.  This is the week of spikes.  

What is the difference between yesterday’s spike and the 172 cases on 25 May? 

• About 2/3 of the cases on 25 May were in captive compounds whereas yesterday were among people who could move about (of course within the context of CMCO)

• About 1/4 of the cases on 25 May were from workplaces whereas yesterday the workplace clusters accounted for about 3/4 of the cases for the day. 

Cluster	25 May (no of cases)	29 May (no of cases)
Detention centres	112	0
Workplace	44 (a)	77 (b)
Returnee	5	7
Misc	11	19
Total	172 of which 92 % foreigners	103 of which 82 % foreigners

Notes

a) KL construction 2

b) Pedas and cleaning company

 

Although there were more cases on 25 May, I am very sure the MOH staff will have a harder time managing yesterday’s cases as there is more contact tracing work to be done. 

I am actually concerned about the Pedas cluster as it was first reported on 8 May when 786 people were tested and 60 found positive.  So I am willing to bet that it had gone to the next generation given the almost 3 weeks duration. 

What does it all mean for you and me?

• Contrary to what I said yesterday, the % of cases from workplaces will become bigger as more people go back to work.  

• Our contact tracing and isolating the PUI among the foreign workers is still bad (Look at Pedas)

The fact that the majority of the cases in both "spike days" are foreign workers does not really help as they are probably working with Malaysians and you can imagine how the infection will spread if not nipped in the bud.

But I think we are far away from reverting to another round of MCO as the work clusters seemed containable – yes, more will probably get infected but I will be surprised if MOH has not identified and isolated all those connected to the infected.  They may be foreign workers but I am confident the employers have better records to help contact tracing that those who had organized public events in the past.

I have received several articles on contact tracing and sad to say that after reading them, I have to conclude that this is the weakest link in the Malaysian arsenal.  It is bad because I have not seen our ministers or MOH talking about contact tracing – I am sure the political leaders would have made a big announcement if this was something to be proud off.  

I have seen briefings about our testing and our treatment capacity, but I have yet to see any MOH statistics on our contact tracing team or resources.   If we follow New York state contact tracing guidelines for opening, Malaysia will require about 10,000 contact tracers!  I am sure we don't have anywhere near this number

And don’t talk about contact tracing apps.  I am still trying to get my MyTrace to work.  Looking at what is happening to contact tracing apps in Malaysia, I think we are going to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the country with the most contact tracing app. 

• First, the Federal govt has not got its act together with MyTrace, MySejahtera and Gerak Malaysia.  I think it is one app for each component party of the PN government!!  

• Then we have each state trying to do its own. There is PgCare from Penang, SabahTrace, SeLangkah from Selangor,  KLStep for Kuala Lumpur, COVIDTrace and QMUNITY both from Sarawak (why 2?).  I suspect the only reason why Kedah, Perak and Malacca have not come out with their own contact tracing app is due to the political in-fighting over who governs the various states!!!

• Finally, the private sector has its own as well eg LYC Healthcare, Covid19-MY by Scicom, CovCT by Madison Technologies, MyEGuard by MyEG (but deployed in the Philippines).  I stopped searching after this, but I won't be surprised that if I had continued searching, I will find a few more. 

If we fail to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the country with the most contact tracing apps, it is because they are still waiting for Perlis (with only 18 cases all in) to come up with its own contact tracing app!!

FYI, I went to 1Utama mall yesterday and failed to get my mobile to read the QR code at the mall entrance.  So I ended up with manual recording.  Then every outlet in the mall required me to register by scanning the QR code before being allowed to go in.  But from what I could see, most of the visitors are like me resorting to pen and paper.  We are Digital Malaysia relying on pen and paper for contact tracing.  I guess it is better than nothing.  

The other thing I noticed is that the thermometer supplier must have made a killing.  Not only was my temperature taken at the entrance to the mall, but another round of temperature was taken at the entrance of almost every outlet in the mall.  My temperature was even taken when I bought a take-away kebab from one eatery.

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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.