Despite imposing full MCO for more than 1 month and EMCO for nearly a week, to bring down the cases to below 4,000 seems to be an uphill task. Not only did we report 8,868 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, the positive rate for the past 4 days were as high as 9.67%, 9.38%, 8,21% and 9.37%.
The current method of screening for COVID-19 will need to be relooked and a self-testing method must be introduced to help solve the situation.
Currently we are using RT-PCR, rapid antigen and antibody kits for the testing. These tests can only be done by healthcare practitioners or laboratories. The cost of these tests is very high ranging from RM70 to RM400.
Many Malaysians are suffering economically due to the pandemic, not all can afford this type of test. The healthcare professionals, labs and hospitals are making huge profit from covid test alone.
Mass screening will help to identify positive cases and action can be taken to reduce the wide spread of infection. Many are either walking with or without symptoms because they do not do a test. Mainly due to cost in the private sector and the crowd in the public sector. They infect many before they are identified as covid positive.
A proven home self-test is now available using saliva and this could be a good option to introduce for home use at an affordable price. The government should control the price and allow Malaysia to do home tests.
This way positive cases can do self-quarantine and admit to hospital if serious. The current MySejahtera app can be used for reporting. The spread of the virus can be significantly reduced.
The suggested price for a home test kit should not be more than RM15. Free Kits can be provided to B40 and below groups.
EMCO is also not an answer as it will cripple the economy. Government should explore this option and make the test kit available asap.