Even with the best healthcare in the country, the Klang Valley has been struggling to cope with being the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia as well as with the rise of the Delta variant.

But in a small state like Malacca which only has one major government hospital, any spike in Covid-19 cases can have dire consequences on its healthcare system, what more with the threat of highly transmissible virus strains.

At the start of July, it was reported that the Malacca General Hospital (GH) had utilised 91 percent of its bed capacity, with 400 out of 444 beds at the hospital filled.

This led to...