Effects of Movement Control Order on mitigating spread of COVID-19 in the early phase of the outbreak in Malaysia

Abstract

We propose a mathematical model to investigate the early outbreak of COVID-19 in Malaysia. The model emphasizes the role of the government's Movement Control Orders (MCOs) as population-wide lockdown measures and the potential benefit of mass testing on disease spread. We fit this model to the reported active COVID-19 cases to estimate model parameters. We also assume transmission rates change with respect to stages of MCOs and compare the differences in rates to assess the effectiveness of different levels of MCO restrictions. The estimated parameters match the observed data well, and our results suggest a slowing of the trajectory of COVID-19 outbreak in the country, indicating that the series of MCOs taken to counter COVID-19 transmission are having a significant positive effect.