PUTRAJAYA, 2 April 2020:
Another 208 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the country as at noon today, bringing cumulative cases to 3,116, while five more deaths were reported.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the death toll was now at 50, or 1.6% of the total number of cases.
He said 105 patients were being treated at the Intensive Care Unit with 54 requiring the aid of ventilators.
Dr Noor Hisham said the 46th death (case 2,909) was a 37-year-old Malaysian man with a history of chronic illnesses and low immunity. “He was treated at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital in Johor on March 28 and died at 11.10pm on March 31.”
The 47th fatality (case 2,910) involved a 78-year-old Malaysian man with a history of high blood pressure and gout. He was treated at the Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah, Johor on March 17 and died at 7.10pm on March 29.
Dr Noor Hisham said the 48th death (case 2,572) was a Malaysian man, aged 85, with a background of heart problems, diabetes and high blood pressure. “He was treated at the Enche’ Besar Hajjah Khalsom Hospital in Johor on March 29 and died at 8.01am on April 2.”
The 49th fatality (case 1,273), meanwhile, involved a 61-year-old Malaysian man who had close contact with case 2,107. “He was treated at the Sarawak General Hospital on March 20 and died at 8.36pm on April 1.”
Dr Noor Hisham said the 50th death was a 69-year-old Malaysian man who was treated at the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital in Negeri Sembilan on March 22. He died today at 2.20pm.
With the overall tally still rising, he pointed out that a flattened infection curve does not mean there would be zero Covid-19 cases in the country.
“What the flattened infection curve would mean is that the total number of cases would be manageable whereby the hospitals would be able cope with the number of patients.
“As we can see, as of today in terms of the patients in intensive care unit (ICU) is increasing so we need to make sure hospitals have the capacity to function well and provide good services to our patients,” he said at the daily press conference on Covid-19 at the Ministry of Health (MoH) here.
Dr Noor Hisham also noted that at present, critical cases represent about 5% of the total number of Covid-19 cases. Another 122 patients have been discharged and he said this brought the total number of recovered cases to 767 or 24.6% of the total cases.
Asked on the statement from the World Health Organisation that Malaysia’s Covid-19 cases would peak by the middle of this month, he said MoH had predicted the same before.
Dr Noor Hisham said the worry now is about imported cases increasing and that is why implementation of Movement Control Order (MCO) in this country has to be tightened within these 14 days.
“We fear that imported cases will increase, that is one of the reasons why we implemented MCO and we will continue our active case tracing especially in hot-spot areas, and by doing so we can identify them early, test them, isolate them and treat them.
“This is a very crucial period, (and) within two weeks if all of us can come together and make sure that we play our role by staying at home, wash our hands, practice social distancing and social discipline among us, hopefully within this two-week period we can flatten the curve.”
– Bernama