The week of 21 to 27 Jan 2021 was one where Malaysia had the record in terms of daily Covid-19 cases. This was on 23 Jan when we had 4,275 cases for the day. But despite this daily record, I think the statistics show that the virus is getting under control.
If you listen to the comments (including those for some govt officials), you wonder whether people understand the meaning of "lagged" indicators.
Covid-19 has a 10-days incubation period (it was 2 weeks when it first started but now health officials all over the world are saying that it is 10 days with the corresponding 10 days quarantine).
So what we are seeing in the week of 21 to 27 Jan 2021 are those people who got infected sometime from 18 Jan 2021.
- The current lockdown was implemented on 13 Jan 2021.
- Thus the infections for the period 21 to 27 Jan 2021 were all after the lockdown.
As you can see from the chart of weekly cases below, the number of weekly cases the week of 21 to 27 Jan is comparable to those a week before that ie 14 to 20 Jan. Those cases from week 12 to 20 Jan were from infections before the lockdown.
The statistics show that the number of weekly Covid-19 cases is no longer showing exponential growth. The "restrictive measures" have prevented the number of cases from going higher. Now whether it will really bring it down is still not so clear.
If nothing else, at least we got it not to increase.
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| Malaysia - No of Weekly Covid-19 cases Nationally |
Regional performance
But when you look at the weekly cases by regions as shown in the chart below, you can actually see that the cases for the Central and Sabah/Kedah in the week of 21 to 27 Jan 2021 are lower than those the week before.
On an optimistic note, I would say that the "restrictive measures" are slowing down the spread of the virus.
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| No of Weekly Covid-19 cases by Regions Central - KL, Selangor, Putrajaya |
But if you compare the national chart with that for Central & Sabah/Kedah, you will see that
- nationwide, the number of cases the current week is the same as that a week ago
- for Central, Sabah/Kedah, the number of cases for the current week is less than that a week ago
The only way the "anomaly" can be reconciled is that the number of cases for the rest of the country is still increasing.
If I was MOH, I will ensure that we do not have inter-state travel
Positivity rates
I mentioned last week that Malaysia had somehow doubled the number of daily tests. This was sort of confirmed by the govt who said that they are now using the rapid testing kits as well.
The other good news is that the positivity rates also seemed to be coming down.
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| Weekly Positivity rates |
OK, we have doubled the number of tests which means more Covid-19 cases (in terms of numbers) have been detected. But the detection rate has reduced. This means that the % of people with the virus is coming down.
Let us hope that this time it is a real trend down and not like what we experienced in end Nov / early Dec when the downtrend was short-lived.
Vaccine
For those of you who have not been following the news, vaccination does not mean that you will not get Covid-19.
What vaccination does is prevent you from falling seriously ill and dying if you are infected. But you can still get infected and thus spread the virus.
I have come across articles that said that however, the viral load is lower if you are vaccinated ie you can still spread the virus but the lower viral load means being less contagious.
So if we all get vaccinated, it means that nobody is going to die (?) but we can still get infected and be mildly sick (?).
I am not sure what this means in our daily lives - does it mean that with 100 % vaccination, there will still be some form of mask-wearing and social distancing?
BTW, in the context of vaccination, I think Malaysia should adopt a different strategy than what the western world is doing. I think the priority after the front liners and politicians (since politicians talk a lot, they must be potential spreaders), the next group should be the foreign workers.
They stay in cramped quarters and we are pretending that somehow they will be able to social-distance when they go home. They are the most likely to be infected as well as be the source of new cases. So we should get them all vaccinated first.
Let's see whether the authorities will recognize this.
Stay Safe
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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.
