PRIME Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said today that the government has managed to save lives due to its handling of the Covid-19 crisis, offering a starkly different narrative than what daily grim statistics show.

Muhyiddin said the government is not perfect, but neither is it doing nothing and letting the people suffer.

He said Putrajaya has saved lives and urged the opposition to stand with the government, which is struggling to deal with the pandemic.

“There is no need to point fingers. The people out there are suffering as a whole, while front-liners and hospitals remain under pressure. 

“It is true that the government is not perfect. But what is also true is that the government doesn’t want its people to suffer, and always take action to save lives and the livelihood of the people,” Muhyiddin said in his speech in parliament today.

“So, let us work together and seek a consensus and success in every effort we put in. United we stand, divided we fall,” he said.

The Prime Minister went on to tell members of parliament that Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest Covid-19 vaccination rate, adding that the country is presently able to administer more than 500,000 jabs a day.

He added that the most effective way for Malaysia to overcome its Covid-19 crisis is by ramping up its vaccination capacity to inoculate more people.

“The government understands that the people are restless and worried when the daily number of Covid-19 cases (are increasing).

“The government is trying its best to overcome the crisis we are facing by speeding up the vaccination programme,” he said.

Yesterday, Malaysia’s Covid-19 caseload exceeded the one million mark as it reported a record-setting number of 17,045 new cases, pushing Malaysia’s national caseload to 1,013,438. 

Selangor accounted for the bulk of the infections with 8,500 cases. This was followed by Kuala Lumpur with 2,045 cases, and Kedah with 1,216 cases.

The country also reported 92 fatalities yesterday, raising the death toll to 7,994.

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham told Sinar Harian yesterday that Malaysia will reach the peak of Covid-19 transmission in mid-September with 24,000 cases a day.

He said that based on projections presented by the Ministry of Health, the infectious rate (RT) is set to be 1.2 by then.

Noor Hisham added that cases are projected to continue rising, with an expected toll of 17,000 cases daily by mid-August.

However, daily infections are likely to fall below 1,000 by October, he said. – July 26, 2021.