MOH confident Malaysia can beat JP Morgan's projection

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is optimistic of beating JP Morgan's projection on the country's COVID-19 cumulative cases and prove that measures taken by the government to contain the spread of the deadly virus are on the right track.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that based on the current trend, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia was expected to be below 5,000 today.

"JP Morgan has actually predicted that we (may) have peak cases on April 14, which is tomorrow... (with projection of) 6,300 cases (but) today we have seen 4,817 (cumulative) cases.

"I think we are certainly doing much better... I am just predicting tomorrow, hopefully, that we can break it down to 5,000 cases, which means our Movement Control Order (MCO) (phases) one and two are working.

"This is a sign that shows we are able to contain and reduce the cases (and) flatten the curve," he said in a daily briefing on COVID-19 Monday.

Based on phases one and two of the MCO, Dr Noor Hisham said phase three was important for the MOH to further bring down the daily number of COVID-19 cases.

"When we look into week-13, there is actually a peak but now perhaps we are in a recovery phase, but we are still monitoring closely because we have not yet managed to break it down further.

"If we can do that, the possibility is we can reduce the cases not only to flatten the curve but the possibility for (us) to end COVID-19 in this country. We hope we can do it but it doesn't only depend on MOH but all of us," he said.

Asked if MOH would carry out massive tests for COVID-19, including those who are asymptomatic, Dr Noor Hisham said currently they would only conduct tests on certain focus groups.

"In terms of screening, we have screened 83,488 cases and only 4,817 or 5.8 per cent are positive. In the Enhanced MCO areas, where we screen everybody in that area - whether symptomatic or not, high-risk group or not - what we found is that when we screen everybody in that area, our detection rate is not 5.8 per cent. We only found 0.5 per cent (positive).

"Rather than screening everybody where the detection rate is only 0.5 per cent, with our limited resources, then we should focus on that (certain) area and high-risk group," he said.

-- BERNAMA