KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — After four consecutive days of recording Covid-19 cases above the 3,000 mark, the Health Ministry sees a drop in the daily infection rate to 2,888 today.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this brings the total cumulative number of Covid-19 cases nationwide now to 2,786,219.

In his daily statement, Dr Noor Hisham revealed that there were 243 individuals requiring intensive care treatment, of which 211 were confirmed Covid-19 cases and the remaining 32 under investigation.

"Of the 243, a total of 113 require breathing assistance,” he said.

The number of recoveries also surpassed today’s figure, with 3,161 people fully recovered.

On the overall cases reported, Dr Noor Hisham said 58 or 1.8 per cent were of Categories 3, 4 and 5 patients.

Today’s infection involved 2,837 Malaysians with 115 cases detected among non-locals, and 299 more imported cases.

Apart from that, another two new clusters were registered today for a combined total of 176 active clusters to date.

Dr Noor Hisham also said the nationwide Covid-19 infectivity rate — denoted as R-naught, R0 or the effective rate of Rt — was at 0.96, with Labuan the highest at 1.14, followed by Sabah at 1.06, Putrajaya at 1.01, Negri Sembilan and Melaka at 1.00, Kelantan at 0.99, Pahang and KL at 0.98.

Johor, Penang and Selangor tied with the nationwide average while Perak and Perlis saw an Rt value of 0.95 respectively followed by Terengganu at 0.88.

Sarawak recorded the lowest Rt value at 0.86.