Covid-19 in the classroom: Over 2,000 infected in three months

‘The Health Ministry has reminded educational facilities nationwide to take precautions to prevent Covid-19 infection, after three of the eight new clusters reported today involved learning institutions. Its director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 41 such clusters have been reported to date since the beginning of the year, infecting 2,228 people so far.

‘Most of the cases (1,058 cases; 47.5 percent) involved tertiary educational institutions, although they comprised only 15 of the 41 clusters. This was followed by 631 cases (28.3 percent) involving 13 secondary school clusters, and 419 cases (18.8 percent) involving 10 primary school and preschool clusters. Other educational institutions account for three clusters, totalling 120 cases (5.4 percent).’

Read here (Malaysiakini, Mar 25, 2021)

Malaysia's Top Glove fired whistleblower before virus outbreak

‘Afraid of losing his job if he complained directly to management, Khadka, 27, sent the photos to a workers’ rights campaigner in his native Nepal who sent them on to the company and the Malaysian government, without identifying who took them.

‘On Sept. 23, Top Glove sent Khadka a letter terminating his employment for sharing the photos. In the letter, seen by Reuters, the company said it identified him as the originator of the photos from CCTV coverage of workers entering the factory.

‘Fast-forward almost three months, Top Glove’s complex of factories and dormitories in Klang, 40 km (25 miles) west of Kuala Lumpur, has become Malaysia’s biggest coronavirus cluster with more than 5,000 infections, about 94% of them foreigners, the country’s health ministry said in a statement on Dec. 1.’

Read here (Reuters, Dec 13, 2020)

Businesses and residents near Top Glove dormitories on edge, as Covid-19 cases spike among workers

"We didn't know about workers being infected until last week," said resident Kandasamy Padakat Hurian, 43 who lives in a house directly across a worker dormitory. "When I went out to work at 7am on Monday (Nov 16), army trucks and the police were already here. By evening when I returned, the (barbed) wire was in place," Mr Kandasamy recounted. Prior to last week, Jalan Teratai would be busy in the evenings as petty traders and hawkers lined the road with stalls. "When the government came and locked down the place, everyone fled. It has become very quiet,” he said 

Read here (Channel News Asia, Nov 26, 2020)

Some serious questions about the Top Glove cluster – P. Gunasegaram

‘Did world’s No. 1 glove maker put profit over safety?

‘After the Sabah debacle, where unrestricted campaigning ahead of the September 26 state elections and easy travel conditions resulted first in a steep rise in Covid-19 cases in Sabah and subsequently, in the peninsula, the Top Glove cluster now raises serious questions over the lack of controls by a major company and the government itself.

‘It is a wonder that more measures were not taken by both the company and the authorities to control the menace that has become the Top Glove cluster, even though signals were clearly there that things could get out of hand.’

Read here (The Vibes, Nov 26, 2020)

Experiment shows human speech generates droplets that linger in the air for more than 8 minutes

‘Ordinary speech can emit small respiratory droplets that linger in the air for at least eight minutes and potentially much longer, according to a study published Wednesday that could help explain why infections of the coronavirus so often cluster in nursing homes, households, conferences, cruise ships and other confined spaces with limited air circulation.

‘The report, from researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the University of Pennsylvania, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal. It is based on an experiment that used laser light to study the number of small respiratory droplets emitted through human speech.’

Read here (The Washington Post, May 14, 2020)

The second wave: How did the fight go wrong? (Singapore)

‘The government was blindsided by the spread among our foreign workers... But it needs to be pointed out that the new cases outside this group is worrying in itself. Of the record 287 new cases reported two days ago on 9 April (surpassed again yesterday), 202 were linked to foreign worker dormitories. But a large number (85 cases) were not, including 48 unlinked to existing cases. We are now fighting the virus now on not one but two raging fronts.’

COMMENT: The second front could have been opened up due to an underestimation of how effectively the virus could spread within the community especially by asymptomatic carriers

Read here (Tan Tarn How, April 11, 2020)

Cambridge researchers identify 3 variants of Covid-19, say their methods could be used to help identify undocumented infection sources

‘Researchers from Cambridge, UK, and Germany have reconstructed the early “evolutionary paths” of COVID-19 in humans – as infection spread from Wuhan out to Europe and North America – using genetic network techniques... ‘Study charts the “incipient supernova” of COVID-19 through genetic mutations as it spread from China and Asia to Australia, Europe and North America. Researchers say their methods could be used to help identify undocumented infection sources... The research revealed three distinct “variants” of COVID-19, consisting of clusters of closely related lineages, which they label “A”, “B” and “C”.’

Read here (Cambridge Research News, April 9, 2020)