Fifty deaths in three days is exceedingly and unacceptably high – when is Khairy going to address the high Covid-19 mortality rate in Malaysia?

Malaysia has chalked up 50 Covid-19 deaths in the last three days – 11 deaths yesterday, 15 deaths on Saturday and 24 deaths on Friday.

Fifty Covid-19 deaths in three days is exceedingly and unacceptably high – when is the Heath Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin going to address the high Covid-19 mortality rate in Malaysia?

The cumulative total of Covid-19 deaths in Malaysia is now 32,125 – as compared to Japan’s 20,202 deaths, Pakistan’s 29,772 deaths, Bangladesh’s 28,819 deaths, China’s 4,638 deaths, South Korea’s 7,081 deaths, Singapore’s 897 deaths and Taiwan’s 851 deaths.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 972 deaths per one million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

Johor has become the top state in Malaysia in the last fortnight with the most Covid-19 deaths – recording 27 deaths as compared to Perak’s 25 deaths and Sabah’s 24 deaths, the second and third states with the most number of deaths in the past fortnight.

Malaysia is facing an Omicron wave, as Saturday’s 22,802 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the cumulative infections of over three million mark, is the fourth highest daily new Covid-19 infection throughout the two-year Covid-19 pandemic. Yesterday, we were still in five-digit numbers with 21,072 cases.

We are in line to set a new peak of daily new Covid-19 cases with the present peak of 24,599 cases set on August 26, 2021.

Last year, US-based Cardiologist Afshine Emrani in a tweet claimed that Omicron was nothing more than a seasonal cold virus.

He tweeted: “It is attenuated. Almost no hospitalisations. No critical patients. No oxygenation. No intubation. Everyone will be exposed and will get it. Mass herd immunity. Totally replaces Delta. Within 8-12 weeks, the world will be ‘vaccinated’. Why the panic? It could’ve been a lot worse. Show gratitude to nature for finally eliminating a manmade, lab-leaked nasty virus! We are blessed.”

Afshine went on to claim that the United States will report two million positive cases a day for weeks, after which the "numbers will drop dramatically".

But Afshine has been proved wrong and no country has reported two million Omicron cases. The most the United States has recorded is 903,620 cases on 13th January 2022, which has come down to 31,652 cases yesterday. The United States reached its Delta peak of 308,320 cases on January 8, 2021 – with the Omicron daily peak almost three times the Delta daily peak.

The Delta peak in United Kingdom was 71,285 new daily cases on 8.1.2021 while the Omicron peak was 229,622 daily new cases on 4.1.2022 – an Omicron daily peak increase by 3.2 times. Yesterday, United Kingdom recorded 41,270 daily new Covid-19 cases.

As Germany seems to confirm that the Omicron daily peak is about three times that of the Delta daily peak, are we looking at a daily peak of about 75,000 cases for Malaysia?