In Malaysia, already more Covid-19 deaths in first two weeks of May than all of April
KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 — The dangers of Covid-19 possibly overwhelming Malaysia’s healthcare system became more apparent today as the country lost another 27 people to the disease.
While the deaths today were lower than the record of 39 deaths reported yesterday, the number was still the second highest the country has seen since the start of the pandemic.
Of concern is that it continued the trend of rising deaths among Covid-19 patients that appeared to correlate with the growing demand on the country’s intensive care unit (ICU) capacity, which was close to 90 per cent yesterday.
For comparison, the deaths reported today meant Malaysia has lost 282 Covid-19 patients in the month to date or more than the number of people killed by the disease for the entirety of April: 249.
The most deadly month for Covid-19 in Malaysia so far was January, when the government imposed the second movement control order. That month, a total of 289 people died.
With less than half of the month gone, however, May is on track to become the deadliest month for Covid-19 in the country by far.
Cumulatively, Covid-19 has already killed 1,788 people since the disease was first detected in the country in February 2020.
However, the absolute number does not convey the fact that only 471 of those were in 2020, meaning that nearly three in every four deaths have come in the first four-and-half months of this year alone.
When urging Malaysians to take every precaution to avoid infection, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah previously said he hoped the country’s Covid-19 situation would not reach a point when medical workers must choose which patients live and which would die.
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