PUTRAJAYA, April 17 — The rate of Covid-19 infection among Malaysians returning from overseas remains considerably low, Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah revealed today, as the country continues to see a downward trend in new positive cases.
As of 5pm today, the number of positive cases among returnees stood at just 10, the Health director-general said.
Returning Malaysians are sent straight into quarantine, but most have since been discharged.
“Since the mandatory quarantine for those returning from overseas many of them have been discharged,” Dr Noor Hisham said at the ministry’s daily press briefing on the Covid-19 crisis here.
“What I have been informed is that we only have 10 cases that are positive.”
At the start of the month the Malaysian government enforced mandatory quarantine for all Malaysian nationals returning from abroad in a bid to prevent new infection clusters from emerging.
Up to 15,000 returnees had been quarantined, the Health director-general said.
To date, only one imported case, a person who returned from Italy, had resulted in community infection.
50 positive cases were traced to the cluster, dubbed case number 1,580. From it, five have died.
Italy is among countries most severely hit by the pandemic. More than 10,000 people, mostly old, have died although the declining number of recent cases suggest the outbreak is finally abating there.
In Malaysia, the coronavirus disease infections fell to another recent low, with just 69 cases reported today.
As many as 201 patients have also fully recovered and been discharged although the total death toll rose to 86, with two more deaths reported today.
The government could ease some restrictions if the number of new cases continue to fall in the next few days, but cautioned that not all measures will be relaxed at least until a vaccine is developed.
Dr Noor Hisham said today the government has yet to devise an exit strategy but did hint that any plan to reopen the economy will rely on the infection trajectory starting next week.
*A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.
