KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 — Malaysia recorded 7,373 new Covid-19 cases today, just hours before a scheduled special announcement by the prime minister, possibly on the lifting of interstate travel restrictions.
Today’s cases represent a drop of over 1,300 cases from yesterday’s figure of 8,743.
It also means that new cases in Malaysia have remained below 10,000 for a consecutive eight days.
In a Twitter post, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the total number of infections nationally now stands at 2,339,594 since the pandemic began.
Later, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob at a special press conference today announced that the government has agreed to allow individuals who have completed the Covid-19 vaccination to travel interstate without having to obtain police permission starting tomorrow.
Ismail Sabri said the decision was made after the full vaccination rate of the adult population under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) reached 90 per cent and with the decision, Malaysian families were now free to drive back home to meet parents, travel and so on.
On top of that, the government has also agreed to allow Malaysians traveling abroad without the need to apply for the MyTravelPass from the Immigration Department beginning tomorrow as well.
In his daily statement, Dr Noor Hisham revealed that there were 762 individuals requiring intensive care treatment, of which 702 were confirmed Covid-19 cases and the remaining 60 under investigation.
“Of the 762, a total of 410 require breathing assistance,” he said.
The number of recoveries also surpassed today’s figure at 10,959 people.
On the overall cases reported, Dr Noor Hisham said 133 or 1.8 per cent were of Categories 3, 4 and 5 patients.
Apart from that, another eight new clusters were registered today — five community clusters, one workplace cluster, one religious cluster and one high-risk group cluster — for a combined total of 810 active clusters to date.
Dr Noor Hisham also said the nationwide Covid-19 infectivity rate — denoted as R-naught, R0 or Rt — was at 0.86, with Perlis the highest at 1.10, followed by Putrajaya at 1.03, Negri Sembilan at 1.02, Kelantan and Terengganu tied at 0.96, Melaka at 0.95, Pahang at 0.94, Kuala Lumpur at 0.90 and Kedah at 0.87.
All but Sabah, Sarawak, Johor, Perak, Penang, Selangor and Labuan surpassed that of the nationwide average.
