KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — Health Ministry today said there were 19 new Covid-19 cases recorded today including 11 Malaysians, just shortly after the prime minister announced that Malaysia would shift to implementing the recovery movement control order (RMCO) in three days’ time.
Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the 19 new cases comprise of six imported cases from those who returned to Malaysia from abroad (four from India, two from Brunei), while the remaining 13 locally-transmitted cases comprise of two foreigners and 11 Malaysians.
With the 19 new cases today, a total of 8,322 Covid-19 cases have so far been recorded in the country.
Dr Noor Hisham also said 39 patients recovered from Covid-19 today, which means that a cumulative total of 6,674 Covid-19 patients have been discharged in Malaysia, marking a recovery rate of 80.2 per cent.
In other words, only 1,531 cases remain active and under treatment, accounting for 18.4 per cent of the cumulative total of 8,322 cases recorded.
None of the five patients currently in the intensive care unit require respiratory support, he said.
He said that no new deaths have been recorded today, which means the Covid-19 death toll for Malaysia remains at 117, or 1.41 per cent.
Who are the 11?
For the 11 new Malaysian patients who were infected locally, Dr Noor Hisham said six were detected in Selangor (two as a result of screening at the Dengkil rehabilitation centre, two from screenings at Islamic religious schools or madrasah tahfiz, one detainee at the Sabak Bernam police station, one as a result of screenings at the workplace in Klang).
Two of the 11 new cases recorded today were from Kuala Lumpur, one belonging to the Cheras apartment cluster and the other from the new Gombak cluster through screenings of close contacts to Covid-19 patients 7,064 and 7,246.
The rest are one factory worker detected during screenings in Seremban, Negri Sembilan, and two in Sabah detected through screenings as close contacts or family members to Covid-19 patients 3,641 and 4,537, he said.
As for the two foreigners, one is a Bangladesh national detected through screenings, while the other is also a Bangladesh national detected through screenings of the Kuala Lumpur Construction Site 2 cluster.
As for the existence of fake letters purportedly certifying an individual as being clear of Covid-19, Dr Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry is still sticking to screening targeted localities or target groups and keeping records of such results, instead of relying on letters.
He pointed out that documents certifying an individual as being negative for Covid-19 would only be valid at that point in time, as they would still be exposed to the risk of being infected due to exposure to the community.
“So what is important is to refer to MOH, we have records. And what’s important is to look at infections within the community, in target groups, in localities that have been identified,” he said.
Kuala Lumpur police yesterday said they had on Friday arrested two individuals who were involved in a scheme to sell fake negative test results for Covid-19 to foreigners.
