KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 4 — Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today said local workers were increasingly contracting Covid-19 at construction sites and factories, especially in the past week.

He said this meant the disease was spreading to the wider community in Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley.

"Initially it was 63 per cent foreign workers and 37 per cent locals, but now we are seeing more locals in the last one week,” he said at a press conference today, regarding the percentage of local workers infected at construction sites and factories.

Dr Noor Hisham asked Malaysian workers to comply with Covid-19 standard operating procedures, even though many work-related restrictions have been eased.

Last month, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that all foreign workers must be screened for Covid-19, after a rise in cases among the group, especially at construction sites and factories.

Since then, a new workplace-related cluster has been recorded almost every day, with the Teratai cluster — involving a glove factory — causing more than 6,253 infections and becoming the largest cluster to date.