This was a dramatic week for Malaysia in the context of Covid-19
Firstly, we have ended the week of 8 to 14 Oct with a record number of weekly cases. As can be seen from the chart below, we had 3,547 new Covid-19 cases for the week whereas the previous peak of Mac/April was 610 cases.
The other dramatic things that happened this week were:
- The CMCO was implemented for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya. This kicked in on 14th Oct and is supposed to end on 27th Oct 2020.
- The govt finally decided to implement CMCO for the whole of Sabah after weeks of implementing TEMCO for certain districts
The CMCO for the whole of Selangor was of course challenged by the State Govt - the question was why the whole state and not confined it to just the red zones.
The reason given by our PM was that the other districts in the state also had an alarming increase and this was a precautionary measure.
If you listen to the news about what is happening to the US, there is a benefit of taking measures early.
The only problem with the PM reasoning was that we did not have a consistent policy.
- Sabah should have been placed under lockdown much earlier.
- Travel restrictions to and from Sabah should have also been implemented earlier rather than from 12th Oct.
But I would have thought the implementing it for KL, Putrajaya and most of the Klang Valley makes sense because people stay and work in different places in these regions. It would be a big challenge to control traffic if only certain districts were under the CMCO.
While the CMCO is not as restrictive as the MCO in that most businesses are allowed to operate, the question on my mind is whether the CMCO would actually end on 27th Oct.
In other words, what is the likelihood that it will be extended?
What will happen in 2 weeks time?
If we have got the virus under control in 2 weeks' time, we will revert back to the RMCO.
Unfortunately, I am not confident about this.
If you look at the historical performance as per the above chart you will note that it will take more than 2 weeks to bring the virus under control as follows:
- From the Mac/Apr 2020 peak, it dropped to about 40% of the peak after 2 weeks
- For the week of 21 to 27 May peak, you will see that after 2 weeks, it is still around half of the peak.
So if we assume the 40 % drop, we can expect the number of cases to drop to about 1,400 cases in 2 weeks' time.
This is even higher than the peak numbers in the Mac/April wave.
If we have these 1,400 weekly cases by the end of Oct, I wonder what would be the justification for ending the CMCO.
If there is to be any hope that the current restriction would be eased for Selangor or Sabah, it would be for a dramatic drop in the number of cases next week.
So let us see the actual number next week. If it has not dropped to 40% of the peak, I am quite confident that the “restrictions” would be extended.
If you want to look at precedent, we went from CMCO to RMCO on 9th June 2020. The announcement was made on 7th June
- During week 4 to 10 June, we had 368 new Covid-19 cases nationwide. So we could use the 368 as one metric
- Another thing is that one week later ie 11 to 17 June we had 177 new Covid-19 cases. It would appear that after lifting the restrictions the number of cases dropped by half. So another metric to look at is to see that the number of Covid-19 cases is dropping dramatically ie to half of the current week numbers.
Do you think that we can meet both these criteria on 27th Oct? Unlikely if the current path follows the Mac/April path
- It will take more than 2 weeks for the national number of weekly new cases to come down to 368 cases
- I have no confidence that the rate of decline in the number of cases would touch 50%
Regional level
Given that the majority of the nationwide cases are from Sabah/Kedah, maybe we have to look at this at the district or even at the state level when looking at Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya.
The chart below shows the number of cases by regions
The number of weekly cases for Sabah/Kedah continues to grow at 15% compared to last week whereas for the other parts of the country the growth was 92%
I would describe the situation for the other parts of the country as “exponential growth.”
Yes, the rate of growth is slowing down but at 92% compared to the 233 % growth rate the week before it is still exponential growth.
Since the main areas in the “others” category are Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya, I wanted to see whether a more granular analysis might give a better picture of what is going to happen in 2 weeks' time.
I look at 2 statistics
- The number of daily new cases
- The number of active cases
Let see the statistics for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya during the last time we went from CMCO into RMCO.
- On 6 Jun, Selangor had 230 active cases with 13 local cases (ie excl imported) for the day.
- On 6 Jun, Putrajaya had 4 active cases with 0 daily cases
- I could not find the equivalent statistic for KL
- During the week, the 3 areas had 310 cases in total
The table summarizes the current position compared with the historical situation.
|
Period |
No of weekly cases (excl imported) |
No of active case |
|
4 to 10 Jun |
310 |
234 (as of 6 June) (a) |
|
|
||
|
1 to 7 Oct |
253 |
262 (as of 7 Oct) (a) |
|
8 to 14 Oct |
444 |
502 (as of 14 Oct) |
Note (a) I could not find any statistics for KL
So based on the historical performance, I would say that the CMCO for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya could end on 27 Oct if
- The number of new cases for the week for the region is about 280
- The number of active cases for the region on 27th Oct is around 250 cases
The target numbers are based on the average respective numbers of the first week of Jun and Oct respectively.
I think that the other indicator is that there should not be a red zone in any of the districts within these 3 areas.
For Malaysia, MOH has classified each district based on the number of active Covid-19 cases in the district
- Red zones are those with more than 41 active cases or more
- Green zones are those with zero cases
- Yellow zone are those with 1 to 40 cases
Since the CMCO just started for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya, it is likely that the number of cases for the week of 8 to 14 Jun is not the peak ie I expect the number for the coming week to be higher.
If so, and given that it will take more than 2 weeks for the numbers to be halved, it is unlikely for these regions to come out of the restrictions come 27th Oct.
Another way to predict the next CMCO or TEMCO
We have precedents that if the number of active cases in a particular district goes about 70, it is likely to be placed under TEMCO.
We now have the example that if several districts within a state have more than 70 active cases, the whole state would be placed under CMCO eg Sabah and Selangor.
Are there other indicators?
I would think that looking at the number of clusters may give a clue.
When Malaysia went into its Mar MCO, we could say that the virus was new and the MCO was to flatten the curve so as not to overwhelm our medical capacity.
At that juncture, I suspect that we were still guessing the actual need for beds, ICU facilities, and ventilators. I remember MOH mentioning about building up more capacity during the first few weeks of the lockdown
Today we have a better picture of the treatment needs and it would appear that the current lockdown is not about flattening the curve to below our treatment capacity.
Rather my reading is that it is our contact tracing capacity that is being overwhelmed.
Our Covid-19 strategy is to contact trace and isolate all contacts. This is why MOH reports the progress made for each cluster.
So if we get to a stage where we have difficulty in contact tracing, having the CMCO would help.
My guess is that since we had 54 active clusters at the time the CMCO was announced, this can be another metric to monitor in the future when trying to forecast whether we will go into another restriction.
Of course, this is a national figure but it can give a picture of how serious the Covid-19 situation is.
Conclusion
- I don't think the CMCO for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya will end on 27th Oct. This is because it will take more than 2 weeks to bring the numbers down to the target numbers
- I see the following as the target numbers for Selangor, KL, and Putrajaya
- 280 new Covid-19 cases for the week 22 to 28 Oct
- 250 active Covid-19 cases on 27th Oct
- No red zones and the number of cases are falling
Let us monitor the situation over the next 2 weeks to see whether there is any hope of ending the restriction come 27th Oct
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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.
