KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 — The Ministry of Health’s (MOH) director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today said that the ministry may resort to using halls and indoor stadiums, should the daily Covid-19 infection cases rise to 1,000.

In a press conference in Putrajaya, Dr Noor Hisham said that currently, there are 19,200 additional beds for patients nationwide in all of the ministry’s training centres, in addition to the currently available 3,400.

"We see to the need. For example, now we have 19,200 beds nationwide using the Health Ministry’s institutes, but if the situation, for example, we see a daily case increment till 1,000, we may open more temporary hospitals using halls or indoor stadiums and such,” he said.

"If we were to see in the Selangor state level, we use the Sungai Buloh Hospital, so cases which do not have symptoms but test positive, or those who have symptoms but mild ones, we would shift them to the ministry’s training institutes first, and the hospitals would be reserved for moderate or critical cases.

"Should cases increase, maybe we will use the Health Ministry’s institutes and also the temporary hospital in MAEPS which has 600 beds,” he said, referring to the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang.

Yesterday, Dr Noor Hisham said converting the MAEPS into a makeshift hospital is just a precautionary move.

He said it is better to be over-prepared than under-prepared in case the anticipated spike in Covid-19 cases does occur in April.