PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 infectivity rate or R0 (R-naught) has come down to 0.99, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       Selangor, Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Negri Sembilan and Labuan have an R0 below the national average.

       The low rate of infectivity in the Klang Valley comes about a month after Operation Surge Capacity, which saw the 6.1 million adults in the targeted areas getting at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by Aug 1.

       The operation ran from July 16 to Aug 1.

       The last time that the country’s infectivity rate dipped below 1.0 was at the end of June.

       Dr Noor Hisham uploaded a graph of the national R0 levels on Facebook yesterday, which indicated that the highest value recorded this year was 1.17 on Jan 16.

       The lowest R0 level recorded was 0.90 on June 12.

       The graph also showed that the R0 level hovered between 1.08 and 1.00 from Aug 1-31, before dipping to 0.99 on Wednesday.

       Johor recorded an R0 of 1.09, followed by Sabah (1.08), Penang (1.07), Kelantan (1.04), Selangor (0.92), Putrajaya (0.91), Melaka (0.90) and Kuala Lumpur and Negri Sembilan (0.81). Labuan has three cases.

       The R0 of a virus is a measure of its transmission or number of new infections generated by each case.

       An R0 of 1, for example, means that on average, each infected person will infect another person they come into contact with.