This grim figure was disclosed by health minister Dr Adham Baba, who said of the total, 19,851 cases involved children below four years old; 8,237 cases (five to six); 26,851 (seven to 12) and 27,402 (13 to 17), and they were Covid-19 patients in categories 1, 2 and 3.

“No one is in the ICU (intensive care unit),” he said in a joint press conference on the development of the country’s immunisation exercise, with the coordinating minister of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin today.

Less than a week ago, senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had said that a total of 48,261 children and babies had been infected as of May 24. Of this number, he said 6,290 were 18 months or younger.

Expressing concern with the statistics, Adham advised parents or guardians to be more responsible in protecting the group from being infected, such as by not taking their children to crowded places.

According to him, although there was no provision under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) that allows compounds to be imposed on parents who take children to crowded places, investigation papers can be opened.

On the number of screening tests conducted for the period from May 23 to 29, he said that a total of 774,863 individuals nationwide underwent the test, with 53,419 individuals testing positive for Covid-19.

Following the sudden increase in new cases, Adham said that his ministry planned to expand screening using the Antigen Rapid Test Kit (RTK-Ag), with the assistance of state governments.

“The health ministry will increase screening tests for close contacts, especially in the Klang Valley, by creating sampling centres in the community,” he said.

He also expressed concern over the risk of death due to Covid-19, which is at 0.45% or 45 patients out of 10,000 positive cases.

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