THE Health Ministry has added 3,032 beds to make it 6,132 in Phase Two of its quarantine centre set up at the Malaysian Argo Exposition Park in Serdang (MAEPS).

Deputy director-general of health Dr Rohaizat Yon said the additional beds at the repurposed facility was to accommodate the spike in Covid-19 cases.

PKRC MAEPS 2.0 was reopened on December 9 to house non-Malaysian patients.

“Bed capacity may be increased to 10,000 according to current needs,” he said in a tweet today.

Earlier today, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said people who had tested positive for Covid-19 but were asymptomatic would have to self-isolate at home for a few days before they could be warded because there were not enough beds as cases continued to surge.

“This happened in Sabah too. We are talking about more than 1,000 cases a day. This is because of increased testing among foreign workers and, as expected, more cases are being diagnosed.

“Foreign workers don’t have a place where they can be isolated. There are thousands here. We are increasing the number of beds to 10,000,” Noor Hisham had said.

Malaysia yesterday recorded 1,196 fresh cases, bringing its caseload to 105,096, with 452 deaths.

Noor Hisham’s comment comes on the back of an employer’ complaint that three of her workers had tested positive for the virus but had yet to receive further instructions from the health authorities.

She questioned the lack of updates on the contact tracing ap MySejahtera.

She said she had ordered the 17 workers who were close contacts to self-quarantine when the first worker was found to be infected.

Two more workers have since tested positive while the others are waiting for their test results.

The hospital assured the workers they would get their test results in 48 hours but that did not happen, she said,

“Two of my workers have tested positive. Until today, the ministry has not contacted them, (issued) no pink bands, nothing,” she said,

Noor Hisham advised those waiting for a response from the hospital to stay in contact with the district health offices. – December 28, 2020.