PUTRAJAYA: A 61-year-old man from Johor became the country's latest Covid-19 fatality, bringing the total number of deaths to 27 nationwide.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the man died at 10:50am today after he was moved from the Tangkak Hospital in Johor to the Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah, Muar this week.
He said as of this afternoon, there were 159 new Covid-19 positive cases detected, totalling 2,320 cases nationwide.
He said 61 people who were previously infected by the virus have been discharged today and so far, the number of cases that have recovered stood at 320.
“So far, 73 Covid-19 positive cases are being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) and from that figure, 54 cases require respiratory aid,” he told a press conference, here, today.
Dr Noor Hisham also noted that there has been an increase in the number of positive cases from Malaysians who recently returned from abroad.
As such, he urged the public to play their role in practising social distancing and to stay at home in order to break the chain of infection.
On cases related to tabligh members who had attended a mass gathering at the Seri Petaling Mosque last month, Dr Noor Hisham said 5,084 of them have yet to come forward to get tested for the virus.
“We have screened 17,584 tabligh members. There are 1,207 positive cases, 6,648 negative cases and 4,645 are still pending (results).
“We need to find the 5,084 people. They have yet to be tested and we are hoping they will come forward quickly and get tested at our clinics,” he said.
It was reported that some 16,000 participants, of which 14,500 were Malaysians, had attended the gathering which was held from Feb 27 to March 3 in Sri Petaling.