PETALING JAYA: The practice of announcing daily Covid-19 infections is no longer relevant, say health experts.
Many of them have held consistent views that daily new cases have lost their relevance with the successful primary vaccination programme and the emergence of the Omicron variant, said Universiti Malaya professor of epidemiology and public health Prof Dr Sanjay Rampal.
He said that the testing of only the more severe cases might be a more prudent use of resources.
“The risk of severe disease has vastly decreased with the vaccination programme and the newer variants.
“There is also no comprehensive testing of all cases, thus the reported cases may represent the tip of the iceberg of all Covid-19 infections.
“We can again look at the influenza programme and adopt sentinel active surveillance as a marker of community burden,” he added.
On Feb 6, Chulalongkorn University’s top virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan was reported as saying there was no point in counting Covid-19 cases now as the figure only represented a fraction of the true number of infections.
The Thai expert said his country was currently reporting only the number of hospitalised patients and deaths, adding that Covid-19 was not going anywhere and would soon become another seasonal disease like influenza.
He also expected the World Health Organisation to stop counting Covid-19 cases soon, as the situation in China improved and the severity of the disease has been declining over time.
Universiti Putra Malaysia epidemiologist and biostatistician Assoc Prof Dr Malina Osman said the move to stop daily updates in favour of weekly updates would be a timely one.
“After almost a year since we had a strict SOP (standard operating procedure), we have observed that cases continue their downward trend despite many concerns about new strains of Covid-19.
“In addition, our healthcare system continues to function as usual,” she said.
Dr Malina said Malaysia had clearly passed the transitional state in which possible threats of incoming waves of Covid-19 infection were no longer the case.
“Does this mean that Malaysia’s transition to endemicity is going well? In my opinion, yes,” she added.
Public health expert Prof Dr Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia said the move to stop announcing the daily number of cases was feasible provided that the caseload stayed on the downward trend, especially the number of hospital admissions and deaths.
She said these were the indicators as infections, positivity rate, and mild cases were expected during the ongoing endemicity transition.
“We can’t be alarmed with just cases only, but we should concentrate more on severe cases, Long Covid and the presence of adverse reactions post-vaccines.
“These are indicators that have been, and need to be, continued by the government.
“These data need not be disclosed to the public as daily cases,” she said.
Prof Sharifa Ezat said Malaysia’s “commendable” vaccine programme had somehow protected the population from the severe impact of Covid-19 in the last months of 2022 and now.
“New cases are not alarming anymore. Hopefully, we won’t be exposed to new and virulent Variants of Concern (VOC),” she added.
She said those who have not yet been boosted should go ahead and get the vaccine for better protection.
Universiti Malaya Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre director Prof Dr Sazaly Abu Bakar said in his estimation, Covid-19 is already being treated as other endemic diseases although this has not been officially announced.
He said for endemic diseases, cases are usually only highlighted when there is an outbreak.
“Otherwise, cases are just kept in the data bank somewhere in the Health Ministry reporting system.
“Doctors are also obligated to input into a system for selected, listed infectious diseases that they diagnosed,” he said.
