New Covid-19 cases continue to climb, breaching 20,000-mark

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 11 — The rise in daily Covid-19 cases continues as the Health Ministry recorded 20,939 new cases today.

The last time cases were this high was on September 10, 2021 which saw a record of 21,176 cases.

However, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah noted that 99.44 per cent (20,821) of the cases recorded today were in Categories 1 and 2 — meaning they were either asymptomatic or had symptoms but not a lung infection or worse.

The remaining 0.56 per cent, or 118 cases were in Categories 3, 4 and 5 — denoting they had developed lung infections or worse.

There are 155 people in Covid-19 intensive care units (ICUs), with 70 of them needing ventilator assistance.

Although 5,807 patients recovered from the disease today, the country’s Covid-19 recovery rate has dropped to 94.8 per cent compared to yesterday’s 95.3 per cent.

The national infectivity rate (Rt) has risen slightly to 1.51, from 1.47 yesterday.

None of the states or federal territories had an individual Rt of below 1 today, with the highest being in Labuan (2.17), followed by Sarawak (1.90), Sabah (1.68).

The three lowest Rt records were found in Perak (1.25), Melaka (1.25), Kuala Lumpur (1.23).

Twenty new clusters were identified today, bringing the number of active clusters to 410.

VoC update

From February 9 to 11, MoH detected 188 new cases involving Variants of Concern (VoC). Of them, 69 cases involved the Delta variant, while 119 cases involved Omicron.

The highest number of Delta variant cases in this period was found in Selangor (45), Sabah (19) and Kuala Lumpur (four).

Similarly, the highest numbers for Omicron were found in Selangor (51), Sabah (17) and Kuala Lumpur (13).

Cumulatively, MoH has recorded 6,504 cases with the Delta variant, 815 cases of the Omicron variant, 233 cases with the Beta variant and 14 cases with the Alpha variant.