KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's lower house of parliament convened on Monday for a special session to hear the government's explanation on issues related to the ongoing COVID-19 situation and the current state of emergency declared in the country.
The five-day sitting is the first since the parliament was suspended following the declaration of a state of emergency on Jan. 12 to stop the COVID-19 outbreak.
The sitting will proceed without several members of parliament (MPs), two of whom have been infected with COVID-19, while several more are under quarantine. All MPs had been vaccinated prior to the sitting.
According to the parliamentary schedule, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will make a statement on the national recovery plan meant to guide the country out of the COVID-19 situation, which has seen a surge of fresh infections in recent weeks, with the total passing the 1 million mark on Sunday.
Besides Muhyiddin, Health Minister Adham Baba will give a statement on efforts to combat the pandemic and Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who is also the coordinating minister for Malaysia's national COVID-19 immunization program, will elaborate on the national vaccination program.
Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz will explain the various government economic aid packages while a statement on the implementation of the emergency order will be made by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, expected to be on the last day of the sitting.
Malaysia reported 17,045 new COVID-19 infections in the highest daily spike since the outbreak, bringing the national total to 1,013,438, the health ministry said Sunday.
Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press statement that six of the new cases are imported and 17,039 are local transmissions.
Another 92 deaths were reported, pushing the death toll to 7,994.
Some 9,683 more patients were released after recovery, bringing the total cured and discharged to 844,541, or 83.3 percent of all cases.
Of the remaining 160,903 active cases, 970 are being held in intensive care units and 501 of those are in need of assisted breathing.