PETALING JAYA, Sept 3 (Sin Chew Daily) – Public health experts are of the opinion that the continued rise in COVID-19 transmission in the country could be due to the spread of the Delta variant in the community, especially in states with low vaccination rates such as Sabah, Kelantan, Kedah and Johor.

As a result, they call for a change in our existing analytic model and try to interpret the situation of the pandemic through the confirmed infection numbers in different states.

They also call for Malaysians to go for vaccination while adhering strictly to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) to contain the pandemic.

UPM public health expert (epidemiology and biostatistics) Associate Professor Dr Malina Osman told Sin Chew Daily even though more people are now fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, daily new infection numbers have continue to hover around the 20,000-level over the past one week with no reduction in positivity rate and ICU occupancy.

She said vaccination rates, the numbers of new infection clusters and active cases as well as hospitalization, ICU occupancy and mortality rates should all be analyzed based on the situation in different states instead of providing nationwide totals.

Although there are around 20,000 new cases reported each day, experts have found that vaccination rate could have a bearing on the virus transmission trend.

“If we analyze state by state and look at the numbers for Selangor, for instance, we will discover that the situation in the state is actually quite encouraging.

“Once the number of fully vaccinated individuals reaches 43.2% of Selangor’s total population, we should see a remarkable decline in numbers of new and active cases as well as hospitalizations.”

Malina said in states with relatively low vaccination rates such as Sabah, Kelantan, Kedah and Johor, the number of new infections could very likely be due to the Delta variant.

As for Sarawak, even though the numbers of new infections remain high, hospitalization and mortality rates are very low, thanks to high vaccination rate.

“I would suggest that we continue to comply with the SOPs and get ourselves vaccinated so that we can end the pandemic and restore our day-to-day activities as soon as possible.”

Universiti Malaya’s public health expert Prof. Dr. Victor Hoe Chee Wai also concurs that the staggering new infection numbers could be due to the highly transmissible Delta variant.

“Although the number of hospitalizations has declined in recent weeks, especially in Klang Valley due to increased vaccination, there are still many who are hospitalized or treated at ICUs.

“Those sent to ICUs may need two to six weeks to recover, and this explains why the number of ICU cases remains high.”

According to him, people who are fully vaccinated can still get infected with the highly transmissible Delta variant, but reassuringly most of them only present minor symptoms and do not require hospitalization.

“This is one way we can do to improve the situation, by getting more people to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

“This is extremely important as the number of new cases along with hospital admissions will begin to drop following increased vaccination.

“But more importantly, we must continue to adhere to public health protocols, put on our masks in public, observe hygiene, keep safe social distances and avoid congested indoor places while ensuring good ventilation of our environment.”