So we have another record day with 691 Covid-19 cases.
The current week cases (from 1 Oct to 6 Oct, based on 6 days) compared to the rest of the year can be seen from the chart below. You can see that even though there is still one more day to go for the current week, it is already a record week.
The media is calling the current situation the 3rd wave as they consider the first wave as the Jan cases and the 2nd wave as the Mac cases
Either I have something wrong with my eyesight or I have to go back to “curve drawing” class
- The highest weekly number of cases in Jan was just 7 cases
- By this definition of a wave, then the week of 21 to 27 May should also be another wave
- Accordingly, what we are having this week should be the 4th wave
I hope the media is not taking the counting cue from the authorities.
If we have a counting problem, then we should not be surprised that nobody is analyzing the numbers to find out the real situation.
Technically we already have exponential growth for the country even based on 6 days for the current week as can be seen from the table.
|
Week |
No of week cases |
% growth c/w previous week |
|
10 to 16 Sep |
448 |
|
|
17 to 23 Sep |
474 |
6 % |
|
24 to 30 Sep |
719 |
52 % |
|
1 to 6 Oct (6 days) |
2280 |
217 % |
Our PM has just told people not to panic even though we can expect a higher number over the next couple of days.
Actually, our PM is right because
- The majority of the current wave is in Sabah and Kedah where EMCO has been put in place
- The sporadic cases in the rest of the country are still below my exponential trigger point of 30 cases per day
Details of my rationale are presented below.
Sabah and Kedah
The chart below shows the local cases for Sabah and Kedah c/w the other states in the country.
We have to remember that a big portion of the increase is from Sabah and Kedah where TEMCO has been instituted.
- From 1 to 6 Oct, Sabah and Kedah accounted for 85 % of the total number of cases. The week before the 2 states accounted for 83 % of the total number of cases
- Given that part of Sabah and Kedah are under TEMCO, we would expect the number of cases in these 2 states to be brought under control within the next 2 to 3 weeks.
- The numbers in these states grew because of the delay in implementing the TEMCO. We can argue the reasons for the delay but it is academic now since the lockdown has been executed.
The issue is how long it would take to bring the number of cases down. Given our history, I would expect it to go down to under 5% of its current level within a month.
The real question is that what are the risk to the rest of the country in the meantime.
Flying in from Sabah
Over the past 6 days (1 to 6 Oct) we have an average of 28 cases daily due to those to coming back from the high-risk area (Sabah) as reported by MOH.
I remember reading a comment from one of the Ministers that the number of cases due to people coming back from Sabah is not significant.
This is of course not accurate if you compare the 28 daily cases with the 57 total daily cases excluding Sabah and Kedah. You can see that about half of the non-Sabah and Kedah cases are due to people coming back from Sabah.
The only way it can be insignificant is to look at the 28 daily cases in the context of all the cases in the country. OK, so we now know some of the ministers can’t count.
It would appear that there are not many people flying back from Kedah. Of course, there are no figures on people traveling interstate from Kedah. But I think we can assume that there will not be those from the TEMCO areas in Kedah going to the rest of the country.
So the risk is still from people flying in from Sabah.
Until we have the mandatory quarantine for interstate travel from Sabah, we will continue to see cases due to travelers from the state.
You can understand my disappointment when PM
- Did not announce some border checks for traffic from Kedah
- Announced a delay in the ban of flights from Sabah till 12 Oct.
Clusters
The chart below shows the breakdown in the number of cases from 1 to 6 Oct into
- Those from clusters
- Imported ones (there are actually only 8 cases so it was not significant enough to show up in the chart)
- Those from misc sources
About 1/3 of all the cases from 1 Oct to 6 Oct are from misc sources. The clusters account for most of the balance.
As of 6 Oct, we have 39 active clusters for the whole country.
- Of these, 3 (2 in Sabah and 1 in Kedah) account for 79 % of all the cum cases for these 39 clusters.
- Note that one each in Sabah and Kedah are prison clusters where the spread has been high due to the closed nature of the prison.
Leaving aside the prisons, the MOH track record for clusters is that general almost all are “de-activated” ie not grown any more within 1 month of being identified.
So I would imaging that these 39 clusters would not be a source of exponential growth.
The other thing about the cluster is the most of them don’t really exhibit significant growth.
- In fact of the 122 clusters in the country from the start of the year, only 24 have more than 50 total cases each by the time the cluster is “deactivated”.
- It is the top 10 clusters that account for 55% of the total cases in the country.
The main point is that we don’t really have to worry about clusters. The ones that got us into trouble are due to Sri Petaling (our first experience) and the prison/detention ones (confined space)
Sporadic cases
The risk of exponential growth then comes from the non-cluster.
Over the period from 1 to 6 Oct we had a national average of 117 new cases under the misc category. I consider these as “sporadic” cases
Excluding the sporadic cases from Sabah and Kedah, we had about 31 cases per day for the rest of the country due to sporadic cases
- As per my previous post, this is just at my exponential trigger point of 30 daily cases.
- Whether these 31 daily cases will cause exponential growth will depend on out contact tracing and isolation efforts.
The important question then is whether in the coming week,
- the 31 daily cases will lead to new clusters and grow exponentially before they are “extinguished” by either EMCO or the normal contact tracing and isolation
OR
- there will be new sporadic cases
I am more concerned about the latter. If over the next one week we actually have double the number of new sporadic cases ie not due to the clusters from the current week's cases, it will be time to panic.
If it remains around or below the trigger point, then I think we don’t need to worry.
Countrywide MCO
I have often said that unless the number of cases is going to exceed our capacity to handle them - from the treatment and contact tracing perspectives, we should avoid another nationwide MCO.
By all means, lockdown specific locations with the TEMCO. But I don’t see why the rest of the country should be lockdown if the number of cases is within our medical capacity.
I think the PM articulated the same point in his address on 6th Oct.
So I think we are safe from another countrywide lockdown.
The risk is localized TEMCO. So, monitor the number of cases within your locality if you want to project what is going to happen to your residential area.
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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.
