even at home also tio delta
scared or not?
still dare to go out?
haaaa
Malaysian family infected with Covid-19 Delta variant despite staying at home since April
Nadirah H. Rodzi and
Hazlin Hassan
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KUALA LUMPUR - Madam Noriah Bakar and her family have largely been in self-imposed isolation at home since April this year.
Despite this, the 36-year-old said her husband and two sons tested positive for the Delta variant of the coronavirus last week, as Malaysia struggled to contain a resurgence in Covid-19 infections in the country.
A record high of 11,618 new cases were reported on Wednesday (July 14), bringing the cumulative total so far to 867,567. On Tuesday, the country reported 11,079 new cases, the first time daily infections surpassed the five-figure mark.
"We're dumbfounded because since mid-April, my husband has only been out once to collect work documents, and I only left the house twice about three weeks ago for my vaccination appointment and to buy bread," the homemaker from Subang Jaya, in the state of Selangor, told The Straits Times.
"We rely heavily on online services for groceries despite it costing a lot of money, so we can't think of what we did wrong," she added.
Malaysia's health chief Noor Hisham Abdullah warned on Tuesday that the number of new cases
could increase over the next two weeks as the highly infectious Delta variant, which can be easily transmitted by air, has been detected in almost every state.
First identified in India, the Delta variant is 55 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which originated in Britain and was itself around 50 per cent more transmissible than the first variant detected in Wuhan, China, according to the World Health Organisation.
Medical experts noted that the Delta variant has an R0 (R-naught) value or the average number of new infections generated by each case of five to eight while the original Wuhan one had an R0 value of 2.2 to three.
"It is likely that B.1.617.2 (Delta) will displace other variants as what has happened in other parts of the world, and that is a cause for great concern," Professor Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, the government's Covid-19 Epidemiological Analysis and Strategies Task Force chairman, told The Straits Times.
Apart from the emergence of newer strains, Dr Bulgiba said a combination of widespread community transmission, airborne spread due to poor ventilation and poor adherence to health protocols due to pandemic fatigue were among the reasons for the surge in cases around the country.