By Olivia Miwil - August 22, 2021 @ 5:20pm
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Covid-19 cases are expected to continue rising for another month, said infectious disease specialist Dr Timothy William.
He added the current situation in Sabah would continue until more people were fully vaccinated and those who have been infected would have a degree of immunity to new infections at least for a few months.
"The trend strongly suggests that Sabah will continue to see the number of cases rising over the next few weeks.
"Whilst it is premature to try and predict just how high the numbers will be, we need to brace ourselves for numbers to be more than 3,000 per day.
"The number of deaths usually lag (behind) the number of (infection) cases by about two to three weeks. So we can expect the number of deaths to rise," he told the New Straits Times.
Based on the three-week data provided by the state government, Sabah saw an increase from 1,002 on Aug 1 to 2,651 yesterday (Aug 21).
In 21 days, there were 34,597 cases with 261 deaths. About 25 per cent or 8,629 patients during the period were those below 18, including 394 infants.
A total of 30,679 patients or 88.7 per cent of the total cases were either not yet vaccinated or only received one dose of the vaccine.
Despite Sabah Covid-19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun saying the spike in numbers was due to a backlog of the cases of previous days, Dr Timothy said doing weekly or daily averages would still be a better indicator of the situation.
"It is definitely a concern (that babies below one-year-old are also infected). As for others under 18, it can be explained by the fact that we have focused on vaccinating people above the age of 18.
"Hence the proportion of people being infected who are younger than age 18, in relation to the total number of cases, will go up. (However), it is still too early to say if the Delta variant affects younger people more."
As for the source of the spike in cases, Dr Timothy said it was unlikely that the source were vaccination centres, where there had been complaints of crowds of people.
Instead, he said widespread transmission in the community was a factor.
Dr Timothy added the public could protect themselves and their families by staying at home, avoiding crowds, wearing a mask properly and going out only when necessary to buy food, for work and for medical care.
"This period will end. People are understandably tired of the compulsory lockdowns.
"Mental and financial wellbeing are also very important. However, we need to be patient and resilient for the next few weeks to wait for this surge of infections to subside.
"There are no easy answers and solutions. However, we need to protect ourselves and our family members by strictly following the standard operating procedures for the time being. Be patient. Be calm. Be courageous. We will get over this together."
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