Daily Covid-19 cases exceed 20,000 mark, with 20,939 cases recorded today - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s daily new Covid-19 cases continue to climb, with 20,939 cases recorded today, bringing the country’s total to 2,996,361, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

The last time daily new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia exceeded the 20,000 mark was on Sept 10, last year, when 21,176 cases were recorded.

Dr Noor Hisham tweeted that 99.44 per cent of today’s total, or 20,821 cases, were category one and two, while only 118 cases, or a mere 0.56 per cent, were category three, four and five.

"There are 5,181, or 24.74 per cent, category one cases; category two, 15,640 cases (74.7 per cent); category three, 95 cases (0.45 per cent); category four, 13 cases (0.06 per cent) and category five, 10 cases (0.05 per cent)," he posted on his official Twitter account.

Asymptomatic patients or those with light symptoms are grouped in category one and two, while category three cases involve lung infection, category four involve lung infection and require respiratory support, while category five are critical cases, usually including organ failure and requiring ventilator support.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham announced that 121 cases from today’s 20,939 new cases were import cases, with the remaining 20,818 being local infections. Also 155 cases required intensive care treatment with 80 cases in need of respiratory support. A total of 5,807 recoveries were recorded today, bringing the country’s total to 2,841,271, he said in a statement on daily Covid-19 developments today.

According to him, 20 new clusters were recorded, bringing the total of active clusters to 410, while the national infectivity rate (Rt) was at 1.51 yesterday, with Labuan recording the highest value at 2.17, followed by Sarawak (1.90), Sabah (1.68) and Perlis (1.55).

In addition, 188 new cases involving Variants of Concern (VOC) were reported in the period between last Wednesday (Feb 9) and today, with 69 cases of Delta variant and 119 cases of Omicron variant.

"This brings the total of cases classified as VOC and Variants of Interest (VOI) to 7,586. From the total, 7,566 cases are VOC and 20 are VOI,” he added.

Detailed information on the current situation on infections and the spread of Covid-19 in Malaysia are uploaded on the CovidNow website at https://covidnow.moh.gov.my. -BERNAMA