KOTA BHARU: The locations for two new Low Risk Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRC) have been identified as Kelantan is still showing an increasing daily COVID-19 trend.

Kelantan PKRC director, Dr Mohd Azman Yacob said the two new PKRC would be at the National Culture and Arts Hall (Dewan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara) and Queenspark Sportcity, both in this district.

He said the need to open the new PKRC was also because the 11 existing PKRC statewide currently had reached occupancy rate of between 90 to 97 per cent.

"The two new locations identified may be used as high capacity PKRC but several things have to be checked in terms of infrastructural facilities including toilets, air-conditioning and others.

"In fact, the comfort of patients and safety of personnel on duty must be given priority in the setting up of the PKRC.

"We cannot take these aspects lightly,'' he said after visiting the Gelanggang Seni Special PKRC here, today.

Commenting further, Dr Mohd Azman said the rising need for more PKRC in Kelantan was because the state lacked high capacity buildings to house a large number of COVID-19 patients.

"To date, the biggest PKRC which is capable of accommodating a large number of patients is the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) (Health Campus) in Kubang Kerian which can accept 464 patients at a time,'' he said.

In the meantime, he said Kelantan PKRC did not rule out the possibility of adding 30 more clinical beds at the Gelanggang Seni Special PKRC in the near future to house COVID-19 patients in category three and above.

"This is because the usage of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds at the Raja Perempuan Zainab II (HRPZ II) Hospital has reached up to 95 per cent, in fact at times, up to 100 per cent.

"I would also like to advise the public especially the people of Kelantan to not only comply with the new normal standard operating procedure (SOP) but must assimilate it as well.

Kelantan recorded 613 new COVID-19 cases yesterday with 53 active clusters.

-- BERNAMA