KUALA LUMPUR: The number of stage 4 and 5 Covid-19 patients has increased from 5 per cent to 15 per cent in five weeks, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.
"Those who presented themselves at stage 4 and 5 at health facilities have increased to 15 per cent in the recent epid weeks of (17th -20th) when the figure was only 5 per cent before."
Stage 4 and stage 5 Covid-19 patients are those who require oxygen and ventilators respectively.
He said the data from the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) also confirmed that more younger people between 20 and 40 as well as 40 and 60 have been infected in this wave.
"This means there are more sporadic cases with no links to clusters."
"We advise those who are infected to be wary. If you have no symptoms in the beginning and are on home surveillance order, and your condition escalates quickly to stage 4 and 5 please call us immediately."
Stage 1 and Stage 2 cases, or those who are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms, are advised to stay at home due to the deluge of cases at public facilities.
Stage 3 patients are those with moderate symptoms who are now being sent to low risk quarantine centres.
Dr Adham also said that to date, 75 per cent of the Covid-19 bed capacity at low-risk facilities and hospitals have been taken up.
A total of 9,689 Covid-19 beds at hospitals and 25,605 beds at low-risk quarantine centres are now full.
He said hospitals in Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Sarawak and the Klang Valley have had to re-purpose non-Covid wards to treat coronavirus patients and also add to the existing beds needed for Covid-19 critical and Intensive Care Units (ICU).
Dr Adham said this measure has somewhat addressed the critical dearth in beds, especially in the Klang Valley.
He added that apart from increasing the number of skilled workers and the setting-up of field hospitals, the Health ministry was also working with two additional hybrid hospitals, including the Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi MARA teaching hospitals to treat non-Covid patients.
"We have also been given conditional approval to use the Child Specialist Centre at Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (in Cheras) to treat Covid-19 patients."
He said other measures include 110 private hospitals providing more than 1,000 Covid-19 beds and 251 ICU beds which would help the health service when it crosses the critical Covid-19 point due to the infectivity rates.
"The government has also given us more funding for Covid-19 beds and to increase ICU capacity. We are also stepping up care at hybrid facilities while low-risk quarantine centres for Stage 1 to Stage 3 patients which are being added."
Dr Adham was referring to the RM200 million shot in the arm given to the Health ministry to boost their resources in combating the coronavirus during the current wave of the pandemic.
When asked about Malaysia's per capita infection rates which were higher than India in data engines, Dr Adham said that Malaysia's prevalence of cases for the 20th epid week was 1,186 cases per million population.
He insisted that the Health Ministry analysis of data was more thorough compared to international.
Dr Adham however urged Malaysians to stay at home and follow SOPs to drive down the infectivity rates.
"We want to break the chain of transmission this way. Our fear is these new variants which are surfacing."
He said the ministry has conducted 488 genome mapping studies and have discovered the UK, South Africa, Indian and Nigerian variants that at times appeared to be sporadic.
"They need to be detected via mass testing as they sometimes have no epid links or links to clusters," he said.