KUCHING, Feb 28 — Democratic Action Party (DAP) veteran parliamentarian leader Lim Kit Siang says there are signs that the Covid-19 Omicron wave in Malaysia will not be as severe as in the UK or US.

The Puteri Iskandar MP said UK and US had recorded daily peak of the Omicron cases at about thrice that of the Delta variant peak.

"Malaysians must keep their fingers crossed that Malaysia will be the best performing nation in the Omicron wave.

"The Omicron wave has to be monitored closely, as the mortality rate where there were 327 deaths from Covid-19 in the past week was unacceptably high,” he said in a statement today.

Lim said Malaysia recorded 24,466 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, and this was less than the Delta daily peak of 24,599 new cases on Aug 26 last year.

Despite so, he noted that the Omicron daily peak in Malaysia was higher than the Delta daily peak given that there were 32,090 new Covid-19 cases on Feb 24, which was about 30 per cent higher than the Delta daily peak of 24,599 new cases on Aug 26 last year.

He, however, said for the last three days, there had been a drop in new Covid-19 cases to 24,466 cases yesterday.

"If this trend holds, Malaysia will do better than the Philippines in the Asean region, where after an explosive surge of new Omicron wave, reached a new daily peak of 38,867 new cases on Jan 15 as compared to the Delta daily peak of 26,208 new Covid-19 cases on Sept 11 last year  —  or about one-and-a-half times that of the Delta daily peak.

"Singapore is having an explosive Omicron wave and some medical experts expect the Omicron daily peak could reach 40,000 new cases a day,” he said.

Lim took note that Indonesia reached a Delta daily peak of 56,757 new Covid-19 cases on July 15 last year, but under Omicron wave, it had reached a peak of 64,716 new cases on Feb 16.

He added that Indonesia recorded 34,976 new Covid-19 cases yesterday.

"The best performing state in the Omicron wave so far is India, which reached a daily peak of 347,254 new Omicron Covid-19 cases on Jan 20, which was lower than the daily peak in the Delta wave of 414,433 new Covid-19 cases on May 6 last year,” he said. — Borneo Post Online