The Umno president said as it is, more than 10,000 had died from the virus, while over 1,000 were fighting for their lives in intensive care unit (ICU) wards.

New infections, he said, continued to outpace recoveries, with over 1.2 million infected.

Yet, the team of propagandists, Zahid said, were attempting to normalise the issue.

“As the number of deaths in other countries is higher, there is no need to create a fuss. The high infection rate is ‘acceptable’ and ‘avoidable’, they claim.

“This is the perception the RM40 million propaganda team is trying to sow,” he said in a Facebook post, believed to be a veiled jab at J-Kom, the government’s community communications department.

In May it was reported that J-Kom was allocated RM40 million to disseminate information.

Umno, he said, could not accept such things and believed that Malaysia had the capability to overcome the pandemic.

“Yet, those who are managing the pandemic have failed.”

In July, Umno declared it had retracted support for Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister and demanded his resignation, citing Putrajaya’s failure to manage the health crisis, among others.

Recently, the party also withdrew support for the Perikatan Nasional government.

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