KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 ― Malaysia recorded 1,576 new Covid-19 cases today, up from yesterday’s 1,213 cases. 

In an update on Twitter, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this brings the country’s cumulative cases to 330,042.

"There are 1,996 who have recovered, bringing the cumulative active cases to 14,360,” he said.

Two deaths were recorded today, bringing the cumulative number of deaths to 1,225.

Of the new cases, 1,565 were local transmissions, while 11 were imported cases.

Sarawak overtook Selangor as the state with most new cases at 407.

Selangor recorded 348 cases, followed by Penang with 182 cases, Kuala Lumpur with 175 cases, Johor with 137 cases and Perak with 100 cases.

As for the remaining states, Melaka recorded 54 new cases, followed by Kelantan with 52 cases, Negri Sembilan with 41, Sabah with 33 cases, Kedah with 25, Pahang with 13, Terengganu with six, Labuan with two and Putrajaya with one.

None was detected in Perlis.

Dr Noor Hisham also said 12 new infection clusters were detected today, which brings the number of active clusters to 427.

From the 12 new clusters, 10 were detected from workplaces in Johor (four), Kuala Lumpur (three), Selangor (three) and one each from Juru Immigration Detention Centre in Penang and Jalan Duta Immigration Detention Centre in Kuala Lumpur.

New cases were found among 64 existing and new infection clusters, with the most coming from the Semuja Immigration Depot cluster (146), Jalan Pelabuhan cluster (94) and Juru Immigration Detention Centre cluster (89).