KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's Covid-19 infectivity or R-naught (Rt) has been on the rise for eight consecutive days since June 25.
Rt refers to the infectivity rate of a virus and the ability of a positive patient to transmit it to others.
According to the information shared by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the Rt value on June 25 was at 0.96 but as of yesterday, it had increased to 1.07.
The change in the Rt value saw the graph forming like what seems like a "U" curve.
The last time Malaysia recorded a 1.07 value was on June 1, the first day the latest total lockdown or Movement Control Order 3.0 was implemented.
If the Rt value is 1.5, it means a positive patient would be able to infect one or two other persons.
This is causing great concern since the increase of the Rt value is getting closer to the Health Ministry's projection, where it predicted that the number will rise to 1.2 if the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOP) are not adhered to.
Should such projection come true, the daily Covid-19 cases are expected to swell up to 13,000 a day.
If this happens, Malaysia will face the risk of seeing a crippled public healthcare system, as projected in the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) analysis.
Based on the daily Rt estimate as of yesterday, Pahang recorded the highest reading of 1.27, much more than the national projection, while Putrajaya recorded 1.13 and Perlis saw zero cases.
