KUALA LUMPUR | All employers or related parties have been urged to accept copies of the digital certificates of the home surveillance order (HSO) and release order (RO) after the patient’s isolation period ends to avoid congestion at Covid-19 assessment centres (CACs).
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement on Friday (Feb 25) said based on data from the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC), a total of 90% of those attending the CACs were for the purpose of discharge from the HSO, where there were patients or employers requesting to get a written notice.
“Reports to the national CPRC found that between 30% and 50% of cases at the CACs were not for assessment of cases that deteriorated while undergoing home monitoring.
“This led to an increase in the workload at the CACs where the focus of health workers is on aspects of assessment and treatment of cases that require special attention,’’ he said.
Dr Noor Hisham urged all employers to be sensitive to this matter and accept the HSO and RO digital certificates and not force employees to seek verification from the CACs.
On the percentage of Covid-19 intensive care unit bed usage in hospitals, he said six states showed a usage percentage of more than 50%, namely Kelantan (86%), Johor (59%), Labuan (57%), Kuala Lumpur (54%), Sabah (52%) and Melaka (50%).
On the other hand, he said 32,070 new Covid-19 infections were recorded on Thursday, with 99.4% or 31,890 cases in Categories 1 and 2, while 180 infections or 0.56% were in Categories 3, 4 and 5, whereas a total of 23,332 recoveries were reported, bringing the cumulative number of recovered patients to 3,018,172.
Categories 1 and 2 refer to patients with no symptoms or mild symptoms, Category 3 involves lung infections, Category 4 involves lung infections and requires oxygen, and Category 5 refers to critical cases with organ damage requiring ventilator assistance.
