KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — Malaysia today crossed the 1,000 deaths per month threshold with still three more days left in May, when 61 more Covid-19 patients were recorded as having died in the past 24 hours.
From May 1 to May 28, a total of 1,046 deaths from Covid-19 were recorded in Malaysia, Malay Mail’s calculations show.
In comparison, Malaysia recorded 471 deaths from Covid-19 for all of 2020.
The month of May was sorrowful for Malaysia as new record-high figures for Covid-19 deaths were recorded repeatedly, with May 9’s figure of 26 topping the previous record of 25 deaths each on May 8 and February 18.
The other new records for Malaysia in terms of daily Covid-19 deaths this month were on May 12 (39 deaths), May 15 (44 deaths), May 17 (45), May 18 (47), May 20 (59), May 24 (61) and May 26 (63).
The high number of Covid-19 deaths recorded this month also comes amid repeated and frequent new records of additional Covid-19 patients detected daily this month, with Malaysia crossing the 8,000 threshold today about a week earlier than forecasted by the Health Ministry.
Of the 61 Covid-19 deaths recorded today in 11 states and two federal territories, Selangor had the highest number at 19 deaths, followed by eight in Negri Sembilan, six in Kuala Lumpur, five in Kedah, four each in Johor and Sarawak, three each in Melaka and Perak, two each in Penang, Kelantan, Labuan, Terengganu and one in Sabah.
The youngest was a Malaysian man aged 25 in Hospital Labuan who also had obesity and asthma, while the next youngest was a Malaysian woman aged 27 whose body was brought in to Hospital Kuala Lumpur.
The oldest among the 61 were a Malaysian woman aged 90 in Negri Sembilan, a Malaysian man aged 91 in Perak, a Malaysian man aged 92 in Kelantan. All three of them had other medical conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.
At the same time, the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs) has continued to increase day by day, also repeatedly reaching new records this month amid the detection of new Covid-19 variants.
This grim situation has put Malaysia’s health resources under severe strain, with reports of hospitals nearing or even exceeding maximum ICU bed capacity while health providers sought to cope by adding on new ICU beds and even converting other non-ICU wards for such use.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 patients in ICU beds hit yet another record high today, with 808 such patients today. Out of the 808 Covid-19 ICU patients today, 403 of them require respiratory support or ventilators to help them breathe.
Malaysia had started the month of May with 337 Covid-19 ICU patients, but this has been on an uninterrupted upward trend up until today, except for a brief dip on May 4 and May 5.
