What is the implication of a 3:1 ratio of infections between foreign workers and Malaysians?

We had 78 cases yesterday that can be broken down into

• 25 imported/returnees
• 40 foreigners
• 13 local transmissions

The weekly chart does not paint a good picture going into the Raya holidays since it points to an upturn for week 10 of the MCO c/w the previous week.

25 of the foreigners were from the Bukit Jalil detention centre bringing the total from this cluster to 60 cases so far.   MOH had reported the day before that it had tested 645 people from this centre.  Unfortunately, there is no information on how many people are detained there so we do not know whether this is the end of the story from this cluster.

The FMT reported various parties voicing their concerns about the risks to new detainees being brought to this centre and are asking Putrajaya for a moratorium on the immigration workers raids. There was also concern about the risks to those working there. I suspect that there will be more cases from this cluster.

The increase in the number of daily cases due to the foreign workers is not something unexpected.  We can debate whether there would be any difference if the cluster was centred on the detention centre or the foreign workers' residential areas.  I would have thought that social distancing would have been a challenge in both situations. 

The main point I want to make is that based on the number of cases since the middle of May, we are having a ratio of about 3:1 in terms of the number of daily cases among the foreign workers c/w Malaysians as can be seen from the chart below.

If this trend continues, it means that more of the treatment resources would be utilized by the foreign workers.  It may be ironic, but we brought in the foreign workers to boost our economy and now it looks as if we will have to expend more resources to take care of them.  This is of course  similar to what is happening in Singapore.

But there is a silver lining to this ratio.  My hypothesis is that it would be easier to control the virus among the foreign workers than among Malaysians.  Historically the foreign workers' clusters tend to be

• Location/residence-based OR
• Employment-based

This concentration makes it easier for the authorities to contact trace them when an outbreak occurs eg many of the foreign workers' residential areas and workplaces have been EMCO.

But when it comes to Malaysians, we run all over the place.

To illustrate what I mean, MOH said yesterday that it had ramped up testing in Kelantan, Kedah and Terengganu after new cases were found in places that have been green zones for some time.  MOH attributed the Kelantan case to a woman who traveled from Ampang, Selangor.  She visited several places to meet up with friends and relatives before arriving at her village. MOH had tested 30 of her family members so far and I am still waiting for news on how many of her friends would eventually be tested.  This mobility is in contrast with foreign workers.

The main concern of course is with event-based clusters like what happened in the Sri Petaling where some of the foreign workers attended, it would be more difficult to trace them.  However,  I would like to think that we should not have such issues in the future as

• We still have a ban on public gathering
• For some of the permitted gatherings such as the religious ones, it is restricted to only locals
• Many public places now require you to record your contacts.  I went to the post office yesterday and was impressed with its SOP.  People had to queue outside with distances marked on the floor.  There was one staff member who took my temperature and sprayed my hand with disinfectant at the door.  Then I had to register before I could take a number.  And they placed the sitting bench against each counter so that you had a 3 feet space between you and the counter staff. 

So what is the moral of the story?  Just because there a are lower number of daily new cases among Malaysians does not mean that it would be easier to control the transmission among them.  Don’t focus on the numbers.  Focus on the distribution of the cases. 



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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.