KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia reported 103 new coronavirus deaths on Thursday, raising total fatalities to 3,096 as it grapples with a surge in infections that brought stricter lockdowns.

The deaths were among 8,209 new daily cases detected by health authorities, bringing the total caseload to 595,374.

Health Minister Adham Baba said it was "not something impossible" for deaths to reach 26,000 by September, as projected by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), if nothing was done to limit communal transmission.

"The virus follows people. When people move, the virus also moves," he was quoted as saying by national newswire Bernama.

An analysis https://bit.ly/3fNsuve by IHME projected a worst-case scenario of over 26,000 total deaths by Sept. 1 in Malaysia.

The government imposed a two-week total lockdown from June 1-14, allowing only essential services to operate. 

Malaysia saw a record daily rise in cases of 9,020 on Saturday.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi and Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Ed Davies and Andrew Cawthorne) ((ananthalakshmi.as@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @AnanthalakshmiA;))