KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s total deaths from the Covid-19 virus have risen to 35 as at 11pm yesterday, following eight new deaths over the weekend. Those who succumbed to the virus included a male aged 27 with a history of diabetes and hypertension, as well as a 91-year-old female.

The death count represented a rate of 1.38% of the cumulative confirmed infection cases in Malaysia of 2,470, following 159 new cases announced on Saturday and another 150 cases yesterday.

Meanwhile, 68 more patients have recovered, bringing the total number of patients who were discharged to 388 or a rate of 15.71%.

The latest infection tally has put Malaysia among 25 countries with the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases, ahead of Ireland (2,415) and Denmark (2,366) at the time of writing.

Around the world, the tally of positive cases has risen to just under 680,000 — a 10% increase from the previous report. Total deaths rose to 31,670 or a rate of 5.66%, while around 21% or 141,216 patients have been declared cured.

The country with the most number of confirmed cases, the US, continues to see an increase in daily new cases, as it reported 20,400 new patients for a total of 124,665 cases. Meanwhile, daily death tolls spiked above 400 last Friday and on Saturday, bringing the total deaths to 2,191 cases there.

Italy, which has the highest death toll, saw a jump of 919 deaths last Friday and another 889 on Saturday for a total of 10,023. New cases have risen by around 6,000 daily, for a total of 92,472.

Spain, another badly hit country, has 6,528 deaths so far. Like Italy, it has a higher death count compared with China, where the virus reportedly originated.

There were 6,549 new cases reported, bringing the total to 78,797 cases — just below China’s 81,443 as the latter reported no new domestic cases.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who is also a senior minister, clarified that the enhanced movement control order (MCO) will not escalate into a curfew or emergency ordinance, so long as the order is implemented under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988.

The government also expects to announce today a new standard of procedure for the MCO, the minister said in a national address yesterday.

MoH expects new cases to spike in mid-April

The ministry of health (MoH) has set a goal to limit the number of cases to under 5,000, as it prepares its manpower and facilities ahead of an expected spike in mid-April.

This includes a temporary 600-bed facility in Serdang, Selangor, as well as up to 9,200 additional beds available in MoH training institutes nationwide on top of some 5,292 beds currently available.

This is as some 5,123 individuals under the Seri Petaling Mosque tabligh group have not shown up to have their samples taken, health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said on Saturday.

“Within a period of one month, [this] has already resulted in the fifth generation of patients originating from the Seri Petaling tabligh group,” he said.

As the government provided more allocation to allow the ministry to beef up manpower, there are also 150 volunteers positioned in stages to assist medical officials on the front lines. Another 1,008 volunteers from the medical field will come in soon, he said.

Meanwhile, the government has called for more volunteers to join the Covid-19 containment efforts, by filling up a form available on the MoH official Facebook page.