Health DG: Winter Is Coming, The Virus Could Get Harder To Contain
Brace yourself for the surge in cases as colder months approach.
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Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has caused Malaysians across the country to wonder if he is a Game of Thrones fan after stating that “Winter is coming” during his daily Covid-19 press conference today.
While it is unclear if the reference was made intentionally, he was referring to the fact that he had highlighted four months ago that there would be a surge in Covid-19 cases towards the end of the year.
Secondly, winter is coming. We’re not experiencing winter yet, but we expected cases to increase during winter, particularly in the northern hemisphere.
Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah
Besides winter, Dr Noor Hisham also attributed the current third wave of cases to the D614G mutated strain of the Covid-19 virus, which he said has replaced the previous circulating virus in the community.
Dr Noor Hisham said this mutated virus has a higher infectivity rate compared to the one that was circulating in the community previously.
Thirdly, a few benchmark countries are also facing an exponential surge of cases like we have. We predicted that the second or third wave would be more challenging compared to the first wave.
Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah
Dr Noor Hisham went on to explain that the Health Ministry has gained 10 months of experience managing the Covid-19 outbreak here, adding that every day presents a lesson to understand the virus better.
He said that his team has adopted a public health intervention approach and have managed to contain the infection so far.
We have beaten the odds. The projection for April was that we would have 6,300 cases but on the 14 April, our cases were only slightly more than 4,000 cases. We managed to flatten the curve before using public health intervention.
Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah
Meanwhile, as we were listening to the rest of his answer, we couldn’t help but draw more similarities between our current Covid-19 situation to the Game of Thrones series.
Would this perhaps imply the Health DG is taking on the role of Jon Snow, leading the Health Ministry as the Night’s Watch to protect the realm of Malaysia against Covid-19 “white walkers”?
Is the Covid-19 D614G mutation the white walker’s Night King?
But for sure, the most obvious similarity would be the political disaster faced by the people of Westeros while the different families fought to ascend the Iron Throne. In Malaysia, the politicking also carried on while another threat lay waiting beyond the wall.
Except, we have no wall. Just masks and hand sanitiser.
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