MOH expects R-naught value to decrease in three weeks' time

PUTRAJAYA: The Ministry of Health (MOH) expects the COVID-19 infectivity or R-naught (R0) value would be reduced to up to 0.5 in the next two or three weeks' time.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) enforced in several areas in the Klang Valley and Sabah had successfully reduced the value of R0 from 2.2 at the beginning of September to the current 1.0.

"If in two weeks we can drop the R0 to 1.0, in two or three weeks' time we can reach R0 0.5," he told a press conference here today.

Dr Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry has anticipated that by the end of the year there will be a surge of COVID-19 cases because the ministry is now dealing with the mutated virus that is replacing the circulating virus, so the infectivity is slightly higher than the circulating virus.

Few countries also facing the same experience, which is an exponential surge of cases, he said.

He said Malaysia has flattened the COVID-19 curve using the public health intervention approach like how the infection was managed in Kedah and such a method will continue to contain COVID-19.

-- BERNAMA