In an interview with Astro Awani this evening, Khairy said the Covid -19 situation must be evaluated more accurately through other indicators, such as the number of deaths and of admissions to intensive care units.

This was why the health ministry no longer provides a breakdown of cases by states in the evening. Details are now published after midnight on the ministry’s CovidNow website.

“Some countries have already said that they will not be reporting daily cases in the future, but we are still following the World Health Organization’s recommendations on reporting cases on a daily basis.

“It’s just that we are not focusing on the daily figures, I have asked health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah to collate those figures with other indicators so the people do not become obsessed with those figures.”

Khairy said this did not mean he was taking the matter of new infections lightly, only that the daily cases should be seen in the context of other indicators to provide a more accurate picture of the Covid situation.

He also said there has been a 25% drop in new cases over the past two weeks with 98% of new infections comprising Category 1 and 2 cases.

Even in the case of deaths, Khairy said 2,344 fatalities were recorded in the first week of August while this week there were 360 deaths, an 85% drop in the death rate.

“Brought in dead (BID) cases have also dropped by 89%. ICU bed utilisation has dropped to 60%. If you look at these indicators, even though we haven’t won (the war against Covid) and are still a long way from the endemic phase, we (can see) that we are transitioning to the endemic phase,” he said.

Khairy said the health ministry will be unveiling the national testing policy next week to guide the people on what they should do in the event they test positive when using self-test kits.

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