Malaysia reported a new daily record in coronavirus infections and deaths on Thursday, as the country deals with spike in the number and severity of new cases.
It announced 59 Covid-19 fatalities on Thursday, a record toll for the third day this week, while its 6,806 new cases was the second straight day of record infections.
The latest numbers pushed Malaysia's total cases to 492,302 - the third highest in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia and the Philippines.
Malaysia is under a nationwide lockdown that came into effect earlier this month, prohibiting inter-district travel and shutting down schools.
It has also been under a state of emergency since January to curb the spread of the virus.
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Officials have said they are seeing an increasing number of serious Covid-19 infections in the current wave.
The latest spike is partly due to highly infectious variants found in recent weeks.
In a tweet, the health ministry said the occupancy rate of beds at intensive care units of public hospitals was at over 70 per cent.
It asked private hospitals to increase the numbers of beds used to treat Covid-19 patients.
