“I think we are getting to the peak, as far as the Klang Valley is concerned we will reach the peak in maybe another week or so,” he said during a press conference today.
“And then hopefully then there is the inflection point.”
There has been a steady rise in cases since late June, when the number of daily infections was below 6,000 a day.
The country has recorded around 17,000 daily cases for most of the past week, with a record high of 17,786 cases set on July 31.
Deputy health director-general Dr Chong Chee Kheong had predicted last week that daily Covid-19 cases are set to rise even further after the number of cases hit a then record 17,045.
However, he urged the public not to be alarmed, stating that the surge in cases, especially in the Klang Valley, was caused by an increase in the use of RTK-antigen test kits and the ministry’s push to get more people to undergo self-tests.
Touching on the daily number of newly diagnosed Covid-19 positive patients and their vaccination history, Khairy said that most of the patients in Category 4 and Category 5 were not vaccinated.
The health ministry classifies Covid-19 patients into five: Category 1 (asymptomatic), Category 2 (symptomatic without pneumonia), Category 3 (symptomatic with pneumonia), Category 4 (with pneumonia requiring oxygen therapy) and Category 5 (critical and requiring assisted ventilation).
The health ministry reported that there were 65 Category 4 patients and 106 Category 5 patients who were newly diagnosed as positive yesterday.
Khairy said that of the 105 Category 5 patients, 96 were not vaccinated at all while 10 had a history of vaccination. Of the 65 Category 4 patients, 47 were not vaccinated at all while 18 had a history of vaccination.
“So while we are starting to see cases of people who have a vaccination history falling to Category 3, 4 and 5, the percentage of those (vaccinated) against those who have not received any vaccines is much, much lower,” he said.
“We will try to get more granular data on people with a history of vaccination… which will help us interpret the effectiveness of the vaccination programme, especially against the Delta variant.
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