KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia confirmed 156 more COVID-19 cases on Monday (Mar 30), bringing the total number of people who have tested positive to 2,626.
At a press conference, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah also said that three more deaths have been recorded.
READ: COVID-19: Malaysia to implement enhanced measures for second phase of movement control order
“According to the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (sic) has confirmed three more deaths, making the total death tally 37.
“The three include a 57-year-old diabetes patient with travel history to Indonesia, a 46-year old man in Sarawak and a 46-year-old man with high blood pressure and an auto-immune disease, also from Sarawak.
On Sunday, Malaysia recorded its highest number of COVID-19 deaths.
Eight deaths were recorded with the youngest being a 27-year-old with diabetes and hypertension, while the oldest was a 91-year-old with similar health complications.
Separately, he said as of 12pm on Monday, 94 cases were in ICU of which 62 required ventilator support.
Dr Noor Hisham also announced 91 new recoveries, bringing the total tally of recoveries to 479.
RELIGIOUS GATHERING INFECTED FIVE GENERATIONS.
He told reporters that among those who attended a mass religious gathering in Sri Petaling from Feb 27 to Mar 1, 1,290 people have tested positive so far.
This was the biggest cluster by far, contributing to the spike of cases in Malaysia.
Sixteen thousand people attended the religious gathering and of that number, 14,111 samples were taken and 8,083 tested negative, the director-general said.
READ: Malaysia arrests hundreds for flouting curbs on movement as COVID-19 deaths rise
“If you really look at it, the Tabligh gathering has spread infections across five generations and it is a high possibility that the infections at the Tahfiz school in Sungai Lui were related to this cluster as well,” he added.
Dr Noor Hisham was referring to 71 students who tested positive at the Maahad Tahfiz An-Nabawiyyah residential school at Batu 23, Sungai Lui.
A member of Royal Malaysia Navy stands at a roadblock to maintain the Movement Control Order, which limits the activities of people in Malaysia as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Kuala Lumpur on Mar 25, 2020. (Photo: AFP/Mohd Rasfan)
“Initially when we went in, there were 71 positive cases, when we went in again today it spiked to 90 positive cases in total at the school and one outside,” he said.
There are a total of 274 students in the school.
Following the 71 positive cases on Sunday, the government ordered a full lockdown at seven villages in Sungai Lui located in Hulu Langat.
Hulu Langat is the district with the highest number of cases in Selangor. As of 12pm on Monday, there were 271 positive cases in the district.
The lockdown, referred to as the Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO), bars the 4,000 residents in the district from venturing outdoors at all hours.
Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has explained that the Welfare Department will be distributing food to the five villages and two Orang Asli villages affected by the EMCO.
He stressed that visitors were also barred from entering the villages.
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