KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 ― Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has updated that Malaysia’s current (R value) Covid-19 infectivity rate has risen to 0.99. This is the highest in a month as the previous 0.99 value was recorded on February 24, 2021.

While Malaysia has been recording less than 2,000 new daily cases in the past week, the number of new daily cases reported still hovers above the 1,000 cases mark. The lowest R value recorded this month was on March 3 at 0.81.

At the moment, 7 states have recorded infectivity rate above 1.0. Both Labuan and Pahang have the highest rate at 1.45, followed by Melaka at 1.31 and Kedah at 1.19.

As shown in the forecast chart above, Malaysia targets to maintain a national infectivity rate of 0.8 to bring down the daily cases to 500 per day. Health Minister Dr Adham Baba has said last week that Malaysia could record 500 daily cases with continued SOP compliance.

Dr Noor Hisham had posted a reminder yesterday that non SOP compliance will lead Malaysi back to square one. If the infectivity rate increases slightly to 1.2, we could see another spike hitting above 2,000 new daily cases by May. ― SoyaCincau