Ex-health minister: Mass testing too late, Covid-19 numbers will rise
PARLIAMENT | Dzulkelfy Ahmad (Harapan- Kuala Selangor) has described Putrajaya's move to conduct mass testing for Covid-19 as "too late".
The former health minister also predicted that the number of infections would continue to rise despite the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
Back when Selangor was recording around 4,000 new cases daily due to the low number of tests, Dzulkefly said he pointed out that the actual figure was around 10,000...
PARLIAMENT | Dzulkelfy Ahmad (Harapan- Kuala Selangor) has described Putrajaya's move to conduct mass testing for Covid-19 as "too late".
The former health minister also predicted that the number of infections would continue to rise despite the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
Back when Selangor was recording around 4,000 new cases daily due to the low number of tests, Dzulkefly said he pointed out that the actual figure was around 10,000.
"The Health Ministry was too slow. They started mass testing only when the NRP came around.
"It is too little, too late. That is why the numbers will not go down for now and I predict it will get worse.
"I predicted that Selangor was at 10,000 when the numbers were around 3,000 to 4,000. People got upset with me but that is the data and science," he said during the Dewan Rakyat session today.
Earlier, Health Minister Dr Adham Baba presented his briefing on Malaysia's action plan to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in Parliament.
Dzulkefly also stressed the importance of an efficient and accurate contact tracing system.
He claimed the current contact tracing methods used in Malaysia are lacking compared to the fully automated contact tracing practised by other countries.
"Do not misunderstand that sporadic cases mean it is unlinked to any cluster. Whether it is unlinked to a cluster or not can be identified.
"But why can't we identify this? Because we did not follow the chain of transmission.
"That is the role of contact tracing. If it (our contact tracing system) relies on MySejahtera, which is semi-manual, if not fully manual, that is just a QR-scanning app because we cannot fully automate it," he added.
He said that in countries such as South Korea and Singapore, they utilise Bluetooth, among other technologies, to trace close contacts.
Dzulkefly, who is the Selangor Taskforce for Covid-19 chairperson, also censured Putrajaya for not sharing enough granular data on infections which is crucial to fight the pandemic.
"You want us to fight, you push us into the ring but you blind us and tie our hands behind," he added.
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