Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has urged those who are taking Covid-19 self-tests to report their results on the MySejahtera app.
According to The Star, he said although testing protocols have been relaxed as Malaysia is transitioning into endemicity, it is still a requirement by law to report any positive test results on MySejahtera.
“We asked that the people report their test results. Currently, by law, people infected with Covid-19 must report their results so they can be issued a Home Surveillance Order (HSO) and go under quarantine at home.”
“But of course, there are people who test positive and do not do this, even though it is required by law.”
Khairy said the country has reached the phase where we are learning to live with Covid-19, adding that he does self-tests 3 times a week and always report the results on MySejahtera.
“If we report our test results, it makes it easier for the Health Ministry to gauge the current situation in the community, even though the more important figures to focus on are hospitalisation and death rates,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Khairy said the issue of underreporting Covid-19 cases does not happen only in Malaysia but all over the world.
“The reported case figures are lower than the real situation on the ground. We have loosened the protocol for Covid-19 tests. Last time, we took a lot of RT-PCR tests but now it is mostly RTK self-tests.”
“And because of that, many take self-tests and they do not report to MySejahtera,” said Khairy.
He added that the more important metric to monitor for Covid-19 now that the country is transitioning out of a pandemic, is case severity.
“Instead of case numbers, we focus more on the number of hospitalisations and deaths. As long as these figures are low, the situation is under control. Case numbers will fluctuate from time to time,” Khairy said.
