PETALING JAYA: Although the variety of severe Covid-19 circumstances in the nation has continued to scale back, the Health Ministry is still involved that the emergence of the Omicron variant could cause a rise in hospital admissions.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah mentioned whereas the Omicron variant could be not as severe because the Delta variant, its infectivity fee was very excessive.
“Because of Omicron’s high transmissibility, this can lead to an increase in patient admissions requiring ‘short stay’ treatments at hospitals.
“This is especially so among patients who are deemed high-risk such as the elderly, individuals with comorbidities as well as children. This in turn can add pressure to the hospital service system.
“The ministry had to come up with several measures to prepare for a possible surge in cases and admissions,” mentioned Dr Noor Hisham in his every day Covid-19 assertion on Monday (Jan 17).
He mentioned among the many ministry’s measures embody utilizing district hospitals as “hybrid hospitals” to deal with Category 1-3 Covid-19 sufferers, and to refer Category 4-5 sufferers to specialist hospitals.
“Stable Covid-19 patients are monitored at home by the Covid-19 Assessment Centre (CAC) until the end of their quarantine period.
“The ministry has also identified antiviral medicines for patients at CACs or low-risk quarantine centres to use at an early stage,” mentioned Dr Noor Hisham.
Dr Noor Hisham mentioned to handle the unfold of Omicron, the general public is suggested to proceed adhering to the ministry’s customary working procedures and in addition to acquire Covid-19 boosters.
Based on the ministry’s weekly Covid-19 evaluation, the variety of weekly circumstances noticed an increase of 0.7% – from 21,859 (Jan 2-8) to 22,006 (Jan 9-15).
The common variety of lively Covid-19 circumstances additionally noticed a 2.4% enhance – from 38,581 lively circumstances (Jan 2- 8) to 39,507 (Jan 9-15).
However, the variety of Covid-19 deaths in addition to intensive care unit (ICU) and ventilator utilization confirmed a discount over the identical interval.
On Monday (Jan 17), Malaysia recorded 2,342 new Covid-19 circumstances, bringing the nation’s cumulative complete to 2,810,689.
Dr Noor Hisham mentioned at present, there are 184 ICU circumstances nationwide with 87 requiring respiration help.
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