KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — Malaysia recorded 19,105 new Covid-19 infections yesterday, marking a drop below the 20,000-case mark that has dominated the past month.
The last time cases dropped below 20,000 was on February 10, which saw 19,090 new infections.
Meanwhile, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 71 people were reported dead due to the disease yesterday, including 26 who died before reaching a hospital for treatment.
Cumulatively, since the start of the pandemic, 3,684,665 cases of Covid-19 have been logged in the country, while 34,400 people have died from the virus so far.
Of the cases recorded yesterday, 98.99 were in Categories 1 and 2, with the remaining 1.01 per cent in Categories 3, 4 and 5.
There are 371 people in Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) beds nationwide, with 203 of them needing ventilator assistance.
Meanwhile, 28,250 patients recovered from the virus — bringing active cases to 274,059.
The country’s Covid-19 recovery rate is at 92.3 per cent, while the national infectivity rate or Rt is at 0.93.
Five states and Federal Territories are currently using more than 50 per cent of their ICU beds — Kuala Lumpur (67 per cent), Johor (66 per cent), Perlis (64 per cent), Kelantan (58 per cent), and Selangor (56 per cent).
At the same time, there are 11 states and Federal Territories using over 50 per cent of their non-ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.
These are: Selangor (89 per cent), Putrajaya (78 per cent), Terengganu (77 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (76 per cent), Perlis (72 per cent) , Perak and Melaka (89 per cent each), Sarawak (56 per cent), Kelantan and Negri Sembilan (55 per cent each), as well as Pahang (52 per cent).
Currently, no quarantine centres are using 50 per cent or more of their capacity.
Dr Noor Hisham also expressed worry over the high transmissibility of sublineage BA.2 — of the Omicron variant — that accounted for 27.1 per cent of all Omicron infections between March 1 and 17.
In February and January, the BA.2 sublineage had only accounted for 0.88 per cent and 3.73 per cent of all Omicron infections respectively.
In comparison, the BA.1.1 variant had increased from 38.3 per cent in January to 48.7 per cent in February, but had dropped to 40 per cent in March.
Dr Noor Hisham then urged Malaysians to take their booster vaccination shot.
