.jpg "Healthcare workers collect swab samples to test for Covid-19 during a mass screening exercise in Taman Manggis, George Town August 12, 2021. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Sayuti Zainudin")
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 — Malaysia’s Covid-19 numbers trended downwards for the fourth day in a row as the Health Ministry recorded 17,672 new cases today.
A tweet by the Ministry of Health revealed the new figure as daily case numbers dropped for the fourth successive day after reporting a record high of more than 23,000 cases last Friday.
This brings the local Covid-19 cumulative case tally to 1,572,765 to date.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement said Selangor again topped the list with 6,376 new infections, followed by Sabah with 2,382 new cases, Kedah with 1,813, Sarawak with 1,606 and Penang with 1,496 new infections.
Currently, there are 260,700 active cases, 1,040 of which are admitted in intensive care units. A total of 502 patients are currently intubated.
Out of today’s cases, eight were imported, with the rest of it being local transmissions; 15,299 involving Malaysians and 2,365 involving non-locals.
Dr Noor Hisham said 536 or about 2.4 per cent of today’s new cases involved those in Categories Three to Five, with the remainder of new cases with little or no symptoms.
He also reported 174 new Covid-19 deaths today, 21 of which were of individuals brought in dead.
The cumulative death count now stands at 14,342 deaths with a fatality rate of 0.91 per cent.
A total of 30 new clusters were reported today, contributing to 1,669 of today’s new cases; 18 workplace-related clusters, 10 community clusters, and two from high-risk groups
Dr Noor Hisham said the biggest cluster reported today was the Industri Korporat Satu cluster detected in Selangor with 266 positive cases out of 301 people tested so far.
He added that 19,053 patients were discharged over the last day, bringing the recovery rate to 82.5 per cent with 1,297,723 discharged to date.
