KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — The basic reproduction number (R-nought or R0) of Covid-19 infections in Malaysia has increased back to 1.1, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

He said authorities’ target to bring down the R-nought to 0.5 has not been achieved yet.

"The worry is that the current trend now… the cases are increasing, we are currently discussing what can be done and what type of action is needed.

"We need to relook at the strategies that we have implemented since October 14. Although we managed to avoid a major increase in cases, we have also failed to bring it down, whereby the R-nought is at 1.1 and we failed to bring it down to 0.5,” he said during a press conference today.

Dr Noor Hisham said it was therefore important for health authorities to review all the strategies that have been implemented recently as it has been projected that the cases will increase in a week or two.

R-nought of below 1.0 is necessary to prevent the growth of new infections.

On November 10, the R-nought of Covid-19 infections in Malaysia was under 1.0.

Dr Noor Hisham said it has been lowered by the implementation of the conditional movement control order (CMCO).