KOTA KINABALU: Sabah's record high Covid-19 cases is not a cause for alarm, says a public health expert who anticipates a downward trend in new infections from October.

       "Our projection shows the cases will start to come down by then," Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) senior public health medicine specialist and public health unit head Prof Datuk Dr Yusof Ibrahim said.

       He added that the state's record high 3,336 cases reported on Tuesday (Aug 24) was not a true reflection of the current situation.

       "The number is not the real (situation). It's a backlog of a few days," he said, adding that the steps taken, including contact tracing by 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 among the community, definitely we will be detecting more cases... which is actually good, as the figures will go down slowly later," he said when contacted on Wednesday (Aug 25).

       He said some medical experts had projected an average of over 3,000 daily cases before the turnaround but he believed a daily average of 2,500 was more likely once the backlog on testing is cleared.

       Prof Yusof said the key to the reduction in cases remains vaccination.

       "Our prediction does not take into account the vaccination coverage for the state. If Sabah can push the coverage up to 50%, (new) cases will be much fewer," he said, referring to Sabah's vaccination rate of 31.4% fully inoculated and 53.3% having at least one dose as of Monday (Aug 23).

       "We need to step up our vaccination too, as it is we have only reached about 30%... the lowest (in the country)," he added.

       He also felt there was no need for lockdowns as the current method of imposing localised enhanced movement control orders was more effective.