“We’ve Successfully Managed To Reduce R0 Value From 2.2 To 0.95” Says Health D-G. Here’s What That Means
The number of new daily cases in the country is also lower than the projected number.
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The nation has successfully managed to bring down the Covid-19 R0 value after just a little over two weeks of conditional movement control order (CMCO) implemented in several areas across the country.
According to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah who announced the news via Twitter, our Covid-19 R0 value at the beginning of the third wave was 2.2.
Today, the R0 value has reduced to just 0.95
R0, pronounced R-naught, is a value calculated to provide information on the potential spread of a disease in a community. It represents the average number of people a single infected person can be expected to transmit the disease to.
Or more simply, it is the calculation of the average “spreadability” of an infectious disease.
R0 is important during an outbreak as it is used by public health authorities, like the Health Ministry, as a factor in their decision making to best control the outbreak.
On top of the reduced R0 value, Dr Noor Hisham also highlighted that the nation is also doing quite well in regards to the number of daily new cases.
Based on the graph he attached with his tweet, the expected number of new daily cases in the country should be 950 when our R0 value is 0.95.
Yet, yesterday (30 Oct) the Health Ministry reported just 799 new cases.
The graph, titled SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed) Model: Covid-19 Daily Observed and Forecast Cases Malaysia (1 Oct – 14 Nov), illustrates the forecasted number of new cases based on three R0 values.
The next obvious question would be what could the nation do to continue keeping the R0 value low. To this, Dr Noor Hisham simply replied saying that continued adherence to the MCO procedures would do the trick.
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