KUALA LUMPUR, April 27 — Perak has cause to celebrate as it now has two additional green zones with no active Covid-19 cases currently, with its Hilir Perak district becoming only the second in Malaysia to gain the status of green zone after falling into the most severe "red zone” category.

The first and only other district in Malaysia that managed to improve from a red zone status to a green zone status is Rembau in Negri Sembilan, after the number of active cases there fell to zero on April 20.

How a red zone can become a green zone

Based on the Health Ministry’s categorisation of districts nationwide in terms of Covid-19 cases, there are three colour codes: green zone (zero cases), yellow zone (one to 40 cases), red zone (at least 41 cases).

In assigning colour codes to each district, Health Ministry also makes a distinction based on the total cumulative cases (or all the cases recorded so far in a district) and based on the number of active cases (or cases still under treatment after deducting deaths and recovered patients).

Districts marked as green zones fall into one of two categories: those which have not recorded any Covid-19 cases, or those which had recorded Covid-19 cases previously but currently have no more active cases.

This means that a district which was previously a yellow zone or red zone could find itself turning into a green zone, if all Covid-19 patients in a district recover.

Hilir Perak’s journey from red to green

On March 25, Hilir Perak became a red zone — one of the only two red zones in Perak — after the tally of Covid-19 cases in the district increased to 48 from 32 on March 24.

Since April 18 which was when the Health Ministry started showing the number of active cases in its daily nationwide maps, the total cumulative tally of Covid-19 cases recorded in Hilir Perak has remained at 65 cases.

From April 18 to April 21, Hilir Perak was already a yellow zone in terms of active cases with just two active cases, with the number then falling to one case on April 22 before finally falling to zero active cases on April 26, giving it a green zone status in the Health Ministry’s latest data released today.

Perak also has a new green zone when the Batang Padang district’s sole active case since April 18 was recorded as no longer under treatment on April 26.

Perak itself has not recorded any new Covid-19 cases since adding on one case for a total tally of 252 cases on April 17, which means that Perak’s tally has stayed at 252 cases for more than a week and remains so as of April 26.

Green zones going up every day

Amid a six-week movement control order enforced by the government where the majority of Malaysians have been staying home except for essential activities and with the Health Ministry carrying out active tracing and detection of Covid-19 cases, the number of green zones has continued to increase daily.

Based on the Health Ministry’s figures, the number of green zones with zero active cases were 47 districts (as of April 18), which increased to 52 districts (April 19), 56 districts (April 20), leaping to 65 on April 21, before going down slightly to 64 (April 22), going back up to 65 (April 23), 66 (April 24) and 67 (April 25).

While the latest Health Ministry figures show two new green zones with Hilir Perak and Batang Padang as of April 26, one of the green zones with zero active cases slipped to become a yellow zone when it recorded one active case.

Negri Sembilan’s Jempol district had first gained the green zone status on April 21 and maintained this status until April 26, when it became recategorised as a yellow zone with one active case.

This means that for April 26, the number of green zones in the country has increased to 68 districts.

The positive trend of green zones increasing daily in Malaysia is in line with the similar positive recent trend of the daily number of recovered patients generally beating the daily number of new Covid-19 patients.

During the MCO period which is now in its 41st day today, there were 17 out of 40 days when there were more Covid-19 patients discharged than new cases recorded.

The growing number of green zones in terms of districts with zero active cases is also matched by the general decline in the daily number of Covid-19 patients that remain under treatment.

After hitting a peak of close to 2,600 Covid-19 patients under treatment on April 5, the number of patients still being treated for the disease has been steadily decreasing to 1,820 as of yesterday (April 26).

In other words, as of yesterday, 66.82 per cent or 3,862 of the 5,870 Covid-19 cases recorded in Malaysia had fully recovered and had been discharged.

In terms of active cases, the number of red zones in Malaysia was at 16 (April 18), 17 (April 19), 13 (April 20), 14 (April 21), but has fallen back to 13 on April 22 and has stayed at 13 districts up until April 26. In other words, there has been no increase in red zones in terms of active cases for the past five days.

In terms of cumulative cases or the total cases recorded so far, the number of red zones in Malaysia had initially been increasing from 27 (April 14), 28 (April 16), 29 (April 17), 30 (April 18).

But for slightly more than a week from April 18, there has been no increase in red zones in terms of cumulative cases in Malaysia, with the number remaining at 30 districts as of April 26.

As for green zones in terms of cumulative cases, there were initially 39 districts which had never recorded any Covid-19 cases on March 25, but this gradually reduced to 26 districts on April 18.

Also for slightly more than a week since April 18, the number of these green zones have remained at 26 districts as of April 26.

While there is much cause to cheer and to celebrate the hard-won mini victories along the way, the Health Ministry has warned Malaysians —— especially those living in green zones—against being complacent as the fight against Covid-19 is far from over.

The death toll in Malaysia from Covid-19 currently stands at 98.