KOTA KINABALU: The state’s high rate of Covid-19 cases is projected to go down by October, says a public health expert.

       Universiti Malaysia Sabah senior public health medicine specialist and head of the public health unit Prof Datuk Dr Yusof Ibrahim said the record-high 3,336 cases reported on Tuesday were not a true reflection of the situation on the ground.

       “It was a backlog of cases over a few days,” he said, adding that steps like contact tracing by the health authorities were in the right direction. Personally, I don’t think we are failing. It’s more from active contact tracing.

       “Since the virus is already in the community, we will definitely be detecting more cases, which is actually good as the figures will go down slowly later.

       “We expect that somewhere in October,” he said yesterday.

       Prof Yusof said while some medical experts had projected an average of over 3,000 daily cases before the turnaround, he projected an average of 2,500 daily cases once the backlogs in testing were cleared.

       “It’s not much different (projection of daily cases of 3,000 and 2,500),” he said, adding that with backlogs being cleared, they anticipated improving numbers of Covid-19 cases in the state.

       Prof Yusof said the key to reduction remained with the vaccination drive.

       “Our prediction does not take into account the vaccination coverage for the state.

       “If Sabah can push the coverage up to 50%, cases will be much less,” he said, referring to Sabah’s vaccination rate of 31.4% of fully inoculated and 53.3% of first dose recipients on Monday.

       “We need to step up our vaccinations too,” he added.

       Prof Yusof also said there was no need for a lockdown as the current approach of enforcing localised enhanced movement control orders was more effective.