PETALING JAYA: The move to give more emphasis on the severity of Covid-19 cases instead of daily numbers has been welcomed by medical experts, who say that it is a way for Malaysians to learn to live with the disease.

However, they advised the public to continue adhering to self-precautionary measures such as isolating when infected to avoid causing a risk to vulnerable groups.

“Most Covid-19 patients have mild symptoms and they need to be socially responsible. They should quarantine themselves, inform their friends and colleagues who are their close contacts.

“If these measures are practised, we may be able to contain the infections, especially to the high risk groups,” said Prof Dr Moy Foong Ming of Universiti Malaya’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine.

She said the decision to monitor hospitalisation and death rates should be done as there were fewer people reporting their Covid-19 status.

At the same time, she also urged the government to issue constant reminders to the public to stay on alert although the national Covid-19 situation is now under control.

Universiti Putra Malaysia epidemiologist Assoc Prof Dr Malina Osman welcomed the move to focus on mortality and hospital admissions.

Since a majority of Malaysians have been inoculated, she said medical consequences due to the virus have slowly become less serious compared to the early days of the pandemic.

“There is lesser (health) impact towards the public as the majority of our population have been vaccinated.

“The situation now is very much different than the earlier period during this pandemic,” she said.

She was commenting on Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who said on Tuesday that the government is phasing out the emphasis on daily infection numbers to be in line with the transition to endemicity.

He added that due to the relaxation of Covid-19 testing protocols, the number of actual cases is also bound to be more than reported.

According to CovidNow portal, as of Wednesday, the number of hospitalisations stood at 74.8% and intensive care unit utilisation was at 64.9%, which included non-Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, the seven-day average death rate stands at 0.8% as of Aug 2.

Dr Malina said that the pattern of infection and risk of transmission indicated that the Covid-19 situation in the country is stable and well-controlled.

“In my opinion, with vaccines, the risk of Covid-19 infection and its severity is more or less now within manageable numbers.”