PETALING JAYA: Malaysia's Covid-19 infectivity rate (R value) has climbed again to 1.0, a possible indication that the number of Covid-19 cases may rise in the days ahead.

       Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pic) in a post on his Facebook page on Friday (Nov 12) said that the country's R value recorded a figure of 1.0 yesterday (Nov 11).

       The R value refers to the number of people that a person who has the coronavirus will infect.

       If the R value is 1 for example, it means that on average, one infected person will spread Covid-19 to one other individual.

       An R value higher than 1 means that the number of cases will increase.

       If the R value falls - especially below 1 - the disease will eventually stop spreading as not enough new people are being infected to sustain the outbreak.

       The last time the country's R value was above 1 was on Aug 31 this year.

       The country's infectivity rate has been trending down since late July, but has been inching up since Oct 20.

       According to the latest figures in the Heath Ministry's CovidNow website, the average number of Covid-19 infections in Malaysia over the past seven days stands at 5,211, which is a -3% drop compared to the previous 7 days.

       However, the number of daily cases has been going up each day since Nov 8 (4,543 cases) to 6,323 cases yesterday.

       According to a graphic included in Dr Noor Hisham's post, states with infectivity values above 1 were Selangor (1.03), Kelantan (1.02), Kuala Lumpur (1.04), Putrajaya (1.16), Negri Sembilan (1.01), and Pahang (1.01).

       The R value for Melaka, where campaigning for the state's Nov 20 election is currently underway, is meanwhile below 1 at 0.94.

       Perak has the lowest infectivity rate at 0.88