.jpg "Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah arrives for his daily press conference on Covid-19 in Putrajaya February 9, 2021. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Hari Anggarann")
KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — As of yesterday, 83 per cent of the intensive care unit (ICU) beds prepared for Covid-19 patients nationwide have been taken up, according to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
In a Facebook post today, Dr Noor Hisham shared a graph showing that Covid-19 ICU bed occupancy has increased from less than 200 beds in March to now close to 900 beds.
The graph also showed that there are more Covid-19 ICU patients — suspected or confirmed — in need of breathing assistance than otherwise.
The latest figure of “ventilated” Covid-19 ICU patients was shown to reach above 500, while “non-ventilated” patients numbered less than 400.
As the number of Covid-19 patients rises nationwide — along with those warded in ICUs — the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been scrambling to prepare more ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.
On May 11, MoH announced that it had a total of 734 ICU beds for Covid-19 patients, with 641 of those taken up by May 12.
On May 15, the ministry said it then had 850 ICU beds set aside for Covid-19 patients — making up about 61 per cent of the total 1,388 ICU beds in 78 government and teaching hospitals.
Yesterday, Malaysia reported a new daily record in Covid-19 infections and deaths.
MoH announced there were 59 Covid-19 fatalities and 6,806 new infections in the last 24-hour period.
The latest numbers pushed Malaysia’s total cases to 492,302 — the third highest in South-east Asia behind Indonesia and the Philippines, although both countries have a significantly larger population than Malaysia.
