KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 — Malaysia today recorded 23,564 new cases, the highest daily figure since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
In his tweet, Health director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, said that the new development brought the cumulative number of cases in the country to 1,513,024.
He said that Selangor continued to be the state recording the highest number of cases, at 6,974, followed by Sabah (2,738), Sarawak (2,548), Kedah (1,932), Kuala Lumpur (1,652), Penang (1,523) and Johor (1,323).
A total of 1,281 cases were recorded in Kelantan, Perak (1,248), Melaka (610), Negeri Sembilan (608), Terengganu (521), Pahang (517), Perlis (64), Putrajaya (24) and Labuan (one).
Yesterday, Malaysia recorded 22,948 new cases.
In a statement, Dr Noor Hisham said that of the 23,564 new cases today, 431 of them or 1.8 per cent were in Categories Three, Four and Five while the remaining 23,133 cases (98.2 per cent), were Category One and Two patients.
Overall, he said 19,362 cases or 82.2 per cent of the total cases reported today had no or incomplete vaccination against Covid-19.
A total of 21,448 recovered cases were reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the cumulative figure for recoveries in the country to 1,241,894 while active cases stood at 257,417.
Dr Noor HIsham said 233 fatalities were recorded involving 199 citizens and 34 foreigners with 60 brought-in-dead (BID) cases involving 44 Malaysians and 16 foreigners.
Meanwhile, he said a total of 1,062 cases were being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with 518 of them requiring respiratory assistance.
Of the 38 new clusters detected, Dr Noor Hisham said that 22 of them were workplace clusters, 14 community clusters as well as one education cluster and private educational institution registered under the Ministry of Education respectively.
He said the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R-naught (Rt) in Malaysia yesterday was 1.04, with all states recording Rt above 1.0 except Kuala Lumpur (0.95), Negeri Sembilan (0.94), Putrajaya (0.89) and Labuan (0).
Perlis recorded the highest Rt rate of 1.31, followed by Sabah (1.22), Sarawak (1.21), Penang (1.19), Kelantan (1.14), Kedah (1.12), Perak (1.11) while Johor, Pahang, Melaka and Terengganu (1.07 each) and Selangor (1.00).
— Bernama
