KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Continued high daily COVID-19 infections and a healthcare system under strain are among Malaysia's challenges in containing the pandemic within its borders, when the government is looking for an exit plan by speeding up vaccination.
The country extended its nationwide lockdown restrictions on Friday after authorities declared that the number of cases remained high despite the lockdown since June 1.
The latest extension will see the continued prohibition on non-essential and social activities till at least June 28, when the present restrictions are set to end.
"This decision was made after taking into account the number of daily cases which are still high, above 5,000 a day," said Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who coordinates the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions in the country.
The latest surge of infections, the most severe one since the epidemic hit Malaysia last year, reached record highs of 9,020 daily cases on May 29 and 129 single day deaths on June 2, but even more critically the number of active cases have breached 80,000 with nearly 1,000 needing intensive care.
The usage of beds by COVID-19 patients in the intensive care units (ICU) of government hospitals nationwide had shot up from 96 percent on May 24 to 104 percent on June 6, according to Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He warned that this had limited the ability to treat patients in need of intensive care. "The ICU bed utilization rate is in excess of this 100 percent particularly worrisome where not all patients requiring critical care can be placed in the ICU," he said.
The official had previously cited new variants spreading in the country as being partly responsible for the number of more severe cases and deaths, but also pointed to a lack of compliance by the public on standard operating procedures and other anti-COVID-19 measures.
As of Friday, Malaysia has recorded a total of 646,411 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 3,768 deaths.
According to former deputy Health Minister Lee Boon Chye, the country needs to priorities measures to reduce the number of new daily infections if it is to regain control of the situation and to ramp up vaccination.
"The priority now is to reduce the number of new infections and once this can be achieved, the strain on bed shortages will ease. By right this could have been done via effective contact tracing and mass testing," Lee told Xinhua.
"Since the pandemic is spiraling out of control now, nationwide lockdown becomes necessary. This must be done together with expedited vaccination. Hence the priority now is to ramp up vaccination," he said.
Lee added that the approval and use of new vaccines must be expedited besides mobilizing as many resources as possible to boost the number of daily vaccinations to over 300,000 per day to help achieve vaccination targets.
Malaysia began its national vaccination program against the virus on Feb. 24, with a target to vaccinate at least 80 percent of its adult population by early next year, out of a population of more than 30 million.
The vaccination effort is picking up pace recently after a slow start, which the government attributed to supply issue.
Some 2.9 million have received their first shot and 1.2 million have received both shots of the vaccine as of Friday, according to the government COVID-19 Immunization Task Force.
A daily vaccination number of 150,000 has been achieved this month. Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who oversees the immunization program, said efforts are being made to raise the number as much as possible.
Malaysia's government has earlier been reluctant to implement strict lockdown measures, citing the devastated effect against the economy.
However, the economic recovery will be dented by the latest spike in COVID-19 infections, according to Moody's Analytics.
Prior to the latest lockdown, the Malaysian government pinned GDP growth at 6 percent to 7.5 percent in 2021. "Our baseline forecast assumes a 5.6 percent expansion in 2021, but there is added downside risk and heightened uncertainty," it said.
Since the implementation of the lockdown in June, the government has announced a new economic stimulus package worth some 40 billion ringgit (9.7 billion U.S. dollars).
The government has also been forced to allow some 1.5 million workers primarily in the manufacturing sector to keep operating to lessen the economic impact of the restrictive measures.
