Malaysia logs 28,298 new Covid-19 infections, 105 deaths

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — The Health Ministry reported another 28,298 new daily Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours

In a statement this morning, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the cumulative total number of cases recorded in Malaysia from the start of the pandemic stands at 3,900,433.

He said 105 deaths were recorded, including 29 who died before reaching the hospital for treatment.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, a total of 41,227 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19.

From the latest round of cases, 99.24 per cent were in Categories 1 and 2, where patients were either asymptomatic or did not have serious symptoms.

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

There are 374 people in Covid-19 intensive care units (ICU), with 233 of them needing ventilator assistance.

At the same time, 33,009 patients recovered from the virus, bringing the total to 3,567,003 or 91.5 per cent.

The national infectivity rate or Rt is at 0.96.

Meanwhile, eight states and Federal Territories are currently using more than 50 per cent of their ICU beds.

These are: Putrajaya (100 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (69 per cent), Kelantan (65 per cent), Perlis (64 per cent), Johor (62 per cent),  Selangor (59 per cent), Melaka (53 per cent) and Sarawak at 51 per cent.

Furthermore, there are 12 states and Federal Territories using over 50 per cent of their non-ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.

These are: Selangor (95 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (89 per cent), Putrajaya (84 per cent), Terengganu and Melaka at 82 per cent, Perak (81 per cent each), Perlis (78 per cent), Sarawak (71 per cent), Kelantan (65 per cent), Johor (56 per cent), Pahang (53 per cent) and Penang (50 per cent).

As for Covid-19 quarantine centres, all states are currently using less than 50 per cent of the beds available.