By Alang Bendahara
SHAH ALAM, April 30 — The low turnout for the free Covid-19 community screening organised by the Selangor government is attributed to the people’s fear of getting a positive result and a complacent attitude.
State executive councillor for public health Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud said low turnouts started to happen after the Federal government announced that the vaccine would be given to the people.
“First is fear. The people are afraid to come to the community screening as they fear they will be sent to the Covid-19 Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) at the Malaysian Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS), or the hospital, or have to self-quarantine at home if they are positive, so for them, it is better to not know. Also, many are afraid they would not get their daily pay if their employer found out they are positive.
“Secondly, people are getting comfortable after knowing that free vaccines will be given to all. Thirdly, there are no more incentives like the RM1,000 that Selangor gave in the first year of the pandemic to those who are positive,” she said in the forum titled ‘Covid-19 in Selangor: Ask anything’ that was broadcast live on her Facebook page today.
Dr Siti Mariah said what is worrying is that there may be people who are positive yet asymptomatic who are moving about in the community and spreading the virus.
In an answer to a question on whether Selangor should be put under another movement control order since its cases are in the thousands and higher than Kelantan, she said it depends.
“Selangor is a densely populated state with 6.7 million, and Petaling district is the most populated. Global data showed that a high number of cases are in densely populated areas.
“But if you take yesterday’s (April 29) figure of 1,083 cases and divide it with 6.7 million and times 100 then the infectivity rate of Selangor is at 0.016 per cent.
“However, with the Ramadan bazaars in operation, and offices no longer at 30 per cent capacity, and with schools opening plus people not following the standard operating procedures (SOPs), then we would have to accept the fact that an MCO might be enforced,” she said.
She advised the people to continue to follow the SOPs and to avoid going to packed places to reduce the risk of forming new Covid-19 clusters.
The forum was hosted by Selangor Task Force Operations director Dr Muhammad Farhan Rusli and Selangor Task Force for Covid-19 member Dr Yap Wei Aun.
