KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 — The country’s new Covid-19 infections continued to hover in the five digit range as the Health Ministry recorded 21,839 fresh cases in the past 24 hours.
This raises the cumulative number of cases in Malaysia to 4,101,081 since the pandemic began in 2020.
But, yesterday’s number was a drop of 2,477 cases, compared to the 24,316 cases recorded on Thursday.
In a statement today, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said another 52 people were recorded as dead due to Covid-19.
He said the number included 15 people who died before reaching the hospital for treatment.
Of yesterday’s new cases, 287 were imported by those coming into the country from overseas, comprising 271 Malaysians and 16 non-Malaysians.
Dr Noor Hisham said 0.74 per cent (139 cases) were in Categories 3, 4 and 5; which denotes the patients have developed a lung infection or worse.
The remaining 99.26 per cent (21,700) cases were in Categories 1 and 2 — meaning they are asymptomatic, or that they have less serious symptoms.
There were 291 people in intensive care unit (ICU) beds dedicated to fighting Covid-19 nationwide, counting both those who were confirmed and suspected to be infected.
The Health D-G said 188 ICU patients required ventilator assistance.
Dr Noor Hisham also said 22,324 Covid-19 patients have recovered from the disease as of yesterday — reducing the number of active cases to 247,065.
The country’s Covid-19 recovery rate is at 93.1 per cent, while the national average infectivity rate or Rt is at 0.92.
Among states and federal territories, only Selangor had an Rt of above 1 — at 1.05 — which means cases there will continue to increase if left without intervention.
Four states and federal territories were using more than or equal to 50 per cent of their Covid-19 dedicated ICU beds yesterday — a drop from the six states reported from the day before.
Yesterday’s listed states were Putrajaya (100 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (67 per cent) Johor (55 per cent), Selangor (51 per cent).
Perlis and Kelantan dropped out of the list.
Meanwhile eight states continued to use 50 per cent or more of the non-ICU Covid-19 dedicated beds.
These being Putrajaya (80 per cent), Selangor (73 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (61 per cent) Terengganu (57 per cent), Sarawak (55 per cent) Melaka (54 per cent), Negri Sembilan (54 per cent) and Perak (53 per cent).
