“Hospital terapung” biar betul? Itulah yang akan dilakukan oleh England jika bilangan pesakit akibat Covid-19 terus meningkat.

Berdasarkan laporan Daily Star, Kapal persiaran Spirit of Discovery dan Saga Sapphire yang berlabuh di Pelabuhan Tilbury, England mempunyai kapasiti mencukupi untuk menampung ribuan pesakit Covid-19.

Malah, syarikat kapal Saga turut menawarkan kemudahan mereka untuk membantu pasukan perubatan negara itu dalam berhadapan wabak berkenaan.

Namun sehingga kini, tiada sebarang keputusan dibuat untuk menggunakan kapal sebagai pusat rawatan pesakit Covid-19.

Di London misalnya, berlaku kekurangan fasiliti termasuklah katil di Unit rawatan Rapi (ICU) ekoran pertambahan bilangan pesakit.

Malah, situasi kritikal sejak Jumaat memaksa pesakit dipindahkan ke beberapa hospital berdekatan yang lain.

Anda ada berita menarik untuk dikongsi? Sila email ke fmtohsem@freemalaysiatoday.com

SINGAPORE: Oil prices were mixed in volatile Asian trade on Monday, but remained at multi-year lows due to the double shock of the coronavirus pandemic and the Saudi-Russia price war.

Both main contracts plummeted at the open after a trillion-dollar support package for the American economy crashed to defeat, and virus deaths surged in Europe and the US over the weekend.

International benchmark Brent crude was off 2.3% in afternoon trade at US$26 a barrel, after earlier being down about 5%.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate however was up 1.3% at nearly US$23 a barrel as traders bought at bargain prices – after having fallen over 3% in earlier deals.

Both contracts remain at multi-year lows as lockdowns and travel restrictions to fight the virus hit demand, and top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia engage in a price war.

Coronavirus deaths soared across Europe and the United States at the weekend despite heightened restrictions, with the tally jumping to more than 14,700, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Prices also fell after a trillion-dollar Senate proposal to rescue the US economy was defeated because of zero support from Democrats, and with five Republicans absent from the chamber because of virus-related quarantines.

The bill had proposed funding for American families, thousands of shuttered or suffering businesses and the nation’s critically under-equipped hospitals.

Oil markets began plunging earlier this month after top exporter Saudi Arabia launched unilateral price cuts following a failure to secure an agreement with Russia to further reduce output and support prices.

There were hopes for some action to support the market after an envoy from Texas, a top oil-producing US state, was given a rare invite to an Opec meeting in June.

But hopes for an agreement fizzled after he faced criticism for suggesting output curbs.

Even if cuts are agreed at some point, they “alone will not be enough to see prices fully recover the lost ground over the last month”, said Peter Kiernan, energy analyst from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“This would need a noticeable recovery in demand, which is unlikely in the short to medium term.”

KUANTAN, March 22 — Social media sites have become the major advertising medium for traders and farmers to look for buyers as they have to close their shops following the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) nationwide since March 18.

A farmer in Kampung Ubai, Pekan Ain Izuddin Mohd Ghazali, 25, said his personal Twitter account is now a virtual shop for him to market his watermelon after his shop on the main street of Kuantan was told to close by the authority last Wednesday.

“I was not upset with the order. This situation is life-threatening, so I do understand. I was a little sad at first because I thought all my efforts will be in vain as those harvested melons could only last for 10 days.

“Then, I tried to sell it on Twitter and I still could not believe many people were helping me by retweeting my content. Today, I received so many orders for the watermelons,” he told Bernama here today.

He said he still has about three tonnes of fruit waiting to be harvested and this is his second harvest since he started his farm a year ago after working to gain knowledge for three years in other people’s farms.

Ain Izuddin, who uses the handle @PaakDiin, said there were also requests from other states including Selangor, Terengganu, Johor, and Melaka, but he admitted it over a tweet that he would not be able to send the fruit due to transportation issue.

Unexpectedly, the tweet turned into a blessing as it attracted the attention of an agricultural agency who then send a representative to his farm and offered help to get a lorry for him to deliver his fruit to places outside Pekan and Kuantan.

“I never expected that a tweet could be this helpful. So I extended the assistance to a few other watermelon farmers here who are in the same boat as I am. We expect the harvested produce in the next two to three weeks to reach 10 tonnes,” he said.

Meanwhile, a satay seller from Felda Mempaga Bentong, Mohd Shezri Ashraf Sharuddin, 27, lamented that this is the first time that his family could not carry out their satay business at the night market ever since his father started it 30 years ago.

“We had to look for alternatives as we could not afford to incur significant losses from the perishable ingredients that we already bought before the government announced the MCO which included the closure of night markets.

“My younger sibling tried to advertise on Twitter and Facebook. Praise be to Allah, the response is very good and for today we received orders amounting 2,000 satay skewers. This amount is quite good although not as much as before,” he said.

Mohd Shezri Ashraf said as a precautionary measure, they will provide free sate delivery directly to the customer’s house without setting a meeting point so as to avoid customers from gathering and to encourage them to make an online payment.

Despite the extra tasks and higher cost of delivery, he believed that it was better than taking risks which could lead to spreading the COVID-19 virus.

“We planned our travel route and work schedule carefully so that we do not have to repeat going to the same place more than once. We also need to ensure that all orders will reach the customers before 6 pm because under the MCO, all businesses must close by 7 pm,” he said.

For the time being, Mohd Shezri Ashraf said his family has decided to continue using social media sites until the night markets are allowed to operate as usual. — Bernama

PUTRAJAYA, March 22 — It is up to the Majlis Keselamatan Negara (MKN) or National Security Council to decide on the proposal to give out free masks to the public, especially in areas at risk of contracting Covid-19, said Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi.

“It was discussed but I cannot give out any information about it. Wait for the decision, the government is concerned about the people,” he told reporters after viewing the supply of essential goods during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period at Hero Supermarket here today.

Nanta was replying to questions from reporters on whether the government was planning to distribute free masks to the public as was done in several areas in Thailand by the health units there.

He said the government was working to make sure that there was sufficient supply of masks in the country by importing from other countries and banning export.

“We are waiting for supply to come in a few days. There are many importers who want to bring them in, so we are confident that we will resolve the problem of lack of masks,” he said.

Asked if the government will limit the sale of masks to one per person, Nanta said for now, there was no such plan, but he advised the public to buy only the amount needed.

“We are not at the stage where we need to limit purchase, but we urge all parties to buy prudently, think of others, if we buy too many for ourselves, this shows that we are not concerned about other people,” he said.

On essential items, Nanta said so far, checks by the ministry found that there was sufficient supply throughout the country even though there was panic buying after the MCO was announced.

“There was panic buying in some places, but it was not too bad and was not prolonged. Consumers in these areas bought too much, but it did not get to a worrying stage,” he said.

He added that the ministry will continue to monitor the supply and price of essential items during the MCO period. — Bernama

BRUSSELS/GENEVA: Ketika Itali mencatatkan korban Covid-19 paling ramai dalam sehari, iaitu 793 pada Sabtu, data Pertubuhan Kesihatan Sedunia (WHO) pula menunjukkan pandemik itu meragut 11,184 nyawa di seluruh dunia pada Jumaat, lapor agensi berita Xinhua.

Di seluruh dunia, bilangan kes kumulatif meningkat kepada 266,073, dengan virus menular ke 182 negara dan wilayah.

Di luar China, jumlah kes disahkan bertambah kepada 184,657.

Itali, Sepanyol, Iran, Jerman, Amerika Syarikat dan Perancis antara negara paling teruk terjejas, kesemuanya merekodkan lebih 10,000 kes. Negara-negara ini mencatatkan lebih 130,000 jangkitan.

Itali melaporkan 6,557 kes baru pada Sabtu, menjadikan jumlah keseluruhan sebanyak 53,578 sejak wabak mula dikesan pada 21 Februari.

Kematian yang dicatatkan dalam tempoh 24 jam itu tertinggi dicatatkan, menjadikan jumlah korban sebanyak 4,825.

Di Sepanyol, kes jangkitan menghampiri 25,000 pada Sabtu. Seramai 326 pesakit pula meninggal dunia dengan jumlah keseluruhan 1,328.

Di Perancis 112 kematian dilaporkan, manakala kes jangkitan sebanyak 1,847 meningkat kepada 14,459.

Seramai 6,172 orang dimasukkan ke hospital, termasuk 1,525 pesakit berada di dalam unit rawatan rapi, separuh daripadanya di bawah umur 60 tahun.

United Kingdom pula menyaksikan kes terkini sebanyak 5,018, dengan 233 kematian.

Sebanyak 30 lagi kematian dilaporkan di Belanda, 136 orang meninggal dunia, 637 disahkan dijangkiti, dengan keseluruhan kes 3,631.

Pada Sabtu juga, Cyprus, Finland, Lithuania, Bosnia dan Herzegovina masing-masing melaporkan kematian pertama akibat COVID-19.

PETALING JAYA: The organisers of the tabligh gathering in Kuala Lumpur have disputed the number of attendees at the event held during the Covid-19 outbreak, which has seen the death of three men linked to it.

Earlier reports had put the figure at 16,000 but one of the organisers, Abdullah Cheong, said the actual figure is about 12,500.

Of the total, Malaysians make up about 11,000, he told Bernama.

“The 12,500 figure is not something we came up with but is based on data of attendees we registered on an annual basis,” he said

The tabligh gathering, held at a mosque in Sri Petaling, took place from Feb 28 to March 1.

Abdullah said the number of participants was also derived based on the mosque’s layout and capacity, after taking into account walk-ins by local participants not required to formally register.

Earlier this month, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah revealed that the attendance was as high as 16,000 people.

Abdullah also said that of the 11,000 Malaysians present, 500 had yet to be screened.

He refuted a claim that thousands of Rohingya migrants had attended the event, saying only 200 turned up, in addition to about 150 Myanmar nationals.

The three men who died, aged 34, 50 and 58, had attended the gathering, which has resulted in a high number of confirmed cases linked to it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST DATA ON THE COVID-19 SITUATION IN MALAYSIA