TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Malaysia reports new daily high of over 6,000 COVID-19 cases
The figure breaks the previous high recorded on Jan. 30, when the health ministry reported 5,728 daily cases.
Change Size
People wearing protective masks cross a street, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia December 17, 2020. (REUTERS/Lim Huey Teng)
M
alaysian authorities on Wednesday reported 6,075 new coronavirus cases, a daily record as the country grapples with a surge in infections.
The figure breaks the previous high recorded on Jan. 30, when the health ministry reported 5,728 daily cases.
On Monday, Malaysia's health minister said the government may consider a total lockdown of the country's most industrial state of Selangor if current coronavirus curbs fail to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Selangor accounted for more than a third of Wednesday's caseload at 2,251 cases, according to ministry data.
Wednesday's figures push Malaysia's total cases closer to 480,000, the third highest number of infections in the region behind Indonesia and the Philippines.
Earlier on Tuesday, Thailand reported 35 new coronavirus deaths, a record daily number that included the country's youngest victim up to now, a two-month-old baby, as authorities struggle to contain a third wave of infections.
The Southeast Asian country's latest COVID-19 outbreak has seen infections more than triple and deaths increase six fold since it started in April, following a year of success in containing earlier outbreaks.
The new deaths included a two-month-old baby with a heart condition, the COVID-19 task force said.
Bangkok, the epicentre of the current outbreak, recorded 876 new infections on Monday, still the highest among the country's provinces.
"New infections found in Bangkok remain high. Overall new cases are still on a rising trend," Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the COVID-19 task force, told a briefing.
Bangkok has now recorded 28,658 new infections since the outbreak emerged in April.
The latest cases included 29 clusters in markets and most recently construction sites, he said, adding more than 1,100 new cases were found at a construction site in the Laksi district.
Prime Minster Prayuth Chan-ocha said the government planned to vaccinate at least 5 million people in Bangkok, or 70% of its population, in the June-July period.
