COVID-19 epidemic in Malaysia: Impact of lock-down on infection dynamics

Naomie Salim; Weng Howe Chan; Shuhaimi Mansor; Nor Erne Nazira Bazin; Safiya Amaran; Ahmad Athif Mohd Faudzi; Anazida Zainal; Sharin Hazlin Huspi; Eric Jiun Hooi Khoo; Shaekh Mohammad Shithil

In addition, Malaysia are still not doing extensive screening, as tests were only run on individuals that fulfill a specific criterion of potential COVID-19 and contacts of infected patients. It is therefore understandable our estimation might not reflect the actual number of cases that will be published by the Malaysia Ministry of Health in days to come. Based on the system dynamic model, it is likely that MCO1 has no effect in restricting the contact of an infected person because the actual total infected cases are higher than the projection with MCO. Simulation output for total infected with further restriction of contact rate of an infected person (1:1) during MCO2 is also lower than actual data (see Figure 19 ). Actual active infected cases are following the projection of contact rate 1:5 as in Figure 24 (showing low compliance of MCO) which will result in the peak of active infected cases = 17,114 on 17th May 2020. All measures must be taken to make sure that MCO2 is 100% complied to avoid the high increase of active cases and to stop the chain of the infection. If the trend of actual data follows the projection in Figure 24 , this shows that MCO2 has low compliance. MCO3 must be considered with full enforcement to restrict all the contact to the infected person.