The new cases of 19,991 brings the total tally of positive cases in to around 1.3m

by AZREEN HANI / pic by BERNAMA

ALL 19,991 Covid-19 cases detected yesterday were from local transmission, says Health DG Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (picture).

Of the total, Dr Noor Hisham said 385 cases were in the severe to critical categories, Category 3 and above.

The new cases detected as of noon yesterday brought the number of positive cases in the country to slightly below 1.3 million.

“Meanwhile 19,606 cases (98.1%) comprised Categories 1 and 2. Some of the cases remained in the same category throughout the period of infection, however, some also improved to a lower category or declined to a higher category,” Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement.

Overall, only 4,632 cases (23.2%) of the total cases reported today had a history of getting the Covid-19 immunisation.

Based on the latest data, Malaysia’s infectivity rate (RT) is 1.06. The states that recorded the highest RT value were Perlis (1.33) followed by Kelantan (1.24) and Terengganu (1.18). All states recorded RTs above 1.0 except Labuan and Perlis.

Malaysia’s death toll also rose to 11,162, as 201 deaths were reported yesterday. Out of these deaths, 34 were brought-in-dead cases, involving 13 Malaysians and 21 non-Malaysians.

There are 230,762 active cases nationwide, where the number of patients seeking treatment in the intensive care units now stood at 1,096, with 570 being intubated.

Meanwhile, 16,258 patients recovered, bringing the number of total recoveries to around 1.06 million.

Dr Noor Hisham said of the 29 new clusters were identified, 17 of them were linked to workplaces, with the remaining linking to community, high-risk groups and religious activity.

Another nine cases related to the special Parliament sitting were also detected, bringing the total number of cases to 97, the Health DG added.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, Institute of Medical Research have identified a total of 47 cases of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 virus, all of which are Variants of Concern (VOC).

“This brings the cumulative number of cases infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus categorised as VOC and Variant of Interest (VOI) to 667 cases.

“Of the total detected, 647 cases were VOC while 20 cases were VOI.

“In total, to date, for VOC there are 209 cases of Beta variant, 424 cases of Delta variant and 14 cases of Alpha variant while for VOI there are 13 cases of Theta variant, four cases of Kappa variant, and three cases of Eta variant,” he said.