Covid 19: Khairy must explain Malaysia’s high death rates – Kit Siang

File Photo/Courtesy of Ministry of Health

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 – Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin must explain why Malaysia has got the worst Covid-19 death figures, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said today, alluding to the country’s 487 death rates and 161 brought-in-dead figures yesterday.

Both the figures were the highest-ever registered in the two categories, raising total death toll from Covid-19 to 24,565 deaths, including 4,809 BID Covid-19 deaths.

Lim Kit Siang said Malaysia was already world’s No. 1 country in the category “Death in the last seven days per 1 million population”, with 76, overshadowing even the 20 countries which have more cumulative total of Covid-19 cases than Malaysia including the USA with 34, India 2 and Brazil 17.

Stressing on an explanation from the Health Minister, the Member Parliament for Iskandar Puteri also pointed out that in the last three weeks, daily new Covid-19 cases in Indonesia have been below 10,000 cases and in four-digit numbers while Malaysia has not been able to bring down hers below 14,000 cases for the past two months.

“Yesterday Indonesia reported 2,720 new Covid-19 cases while Malaysia reported 14,990 new Covid-19 cases.

“Malaysia’s positivity rate is very bad. It has been more than 10% since late August and on 17th September it was as high as 14.8%, way  above the 5% recommended by WHO.”

This subject cannot be avoided, Kit Siang said, who also sought an explanation on the issue of backlog of deaths in the public hospitals.

“Have we cleared the backlog of deaths in the public hospitals, and if not, when will the backlog of corpses be cleared?”