KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — The total recovered cases from Covid-19 in Malaysia continues to surpass the number of new cases, with 16,814 recoveries reported compared with 14,345 new cases recorded as at 12 noon today.
Health director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, said the latest development brought the cumulative number of individuals who have recovered from the outbreak to 1,880,736.
He said there were 1,167 patients being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU), comprising 906 cases confirmed positive for Covid-19, with another 261 cases suspected, probable or under investigation.
“A total of 636 cases requiring respiratory assistance involve 407 positive cases, while another 229 cases are suspected, probable or under investigation,” he said in a statement on the development of Covid-19 today.
Dr Noor Hisham said of the total new cases reported today, 212 cases, or 1.5 per cent, were in categories 3 (pneumonia), 4 (requiring oxygen assistance) and 5 (requiring respiratory assistance), while the remaining 14,133 cases, or 98.5 per cent, were in categories 1 (asymptomatic) and 2 (mild symptoms).
He said of the total new cases, 43 were imported cases, involving 27 Malaysians and 16 foreigners, while 14,302 cases involved local transmission, namely 13,072 Malaysians and 1,230 foreigners.
In addition, he said 23 new clusters were detected, with 13 of them related to workplaces, eight related to community, and one cluster each related to high-risk groups and imported cases.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R-nought (Rt) according to daily cases yesterday for the whole country was 0.92, with Pahang recorded the highest Rt of 1.06, followed by Sarawak (1.04), Perak and Terengganu (1.02) as well as Johor and Kelantan (1.0).
“All other states recorded Rts below 1.0, namely, Penang (0.97), Perlis (0.95), Putrajaya (0.93), Sabah (0.91), Kedah and Melaka (0.89), Negeri Sembilan (0.85), Selangor (0.83), Kuala Lumpur (0.82) and Labuan (zero),” he said.
For data on deaths, it will be uploaded and displayed via GitHub and the CovidNOW website at covidnow.moh.gov.my by midnight tonight.
In the meantime, he said the increasing trend of Covid-19 infection among children below 18 years old in Malaysia was worrying. In fact, he said in this year’s statistics until yesterday, 67 deaths due to Covid-19 were recorded, compared with six deaths reported last year.
“In this regard, parents and guardians are advised to register their eligible children, through their respective educational institutions and through the MySejahtera application, for vaccination, immediately,” he said.
— Bernama
