KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 29 ― Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 cases today broke the 5,000-case mark to reach a new record high of 5,725, along with 16 deaths.
Yesterday’s new cases were just 4,094, which means a whopping 1,631-case increase in 24 hours.
A bulk of the new cases, at over half of them, came from Selangor at 3,126 new cases.
The Ministry of Health announced today that there are 45,478 active cases in total, with 301 of those in the intensive care unit (ICU) and 115 requiring intubation.
Earlier this month, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had predicted that with an infection rate, or R0 of 1.1, Malaysia would only reach 5,000 daily cases by the second week of April.
Even with a R0 of 1.2, it was predicted that Malaysia would only reach 5,000 daily cases by the third week of February.
Dr Noor Hisham has yet to announce the revised R0 of the pandemic in Malaysia.
Perhatian kepada kes harian Covid-19 dan jangkaan unjuran kes dari 4 Januari sehingga 31 Mei 2021 dengan kadar kebolehjangkitan Ro/Rt pada 1.1 dan 1.2 di Malaysia. pic.twitter.com/JTqRj8lXpM
— Noor Hisham Abdullah (@DGHisham) January 7, 2021
The ministry also announced today 3,423 more recoveries.
Out of the total new positive cases, just seven were imported ― involving five citizens.
The deaths had involved nine cases in Selangor, two in Sabah, and one each in Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak, Melaka, Kelantan, and Perak.
The announcement came as Putrajaya just released new standard operating procedures (SOP) for the renewed movement control order dubbed MCO 2.0 that was supposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.
This included federal and state lawmakers to travel cross-border between states and districts for “official purposes” and matters involving their constituencies.
