KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded 20,889 new Covid-19 infections today, the highest since the pandemic started last year, said Health director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
According to the latest COVID-19 data shared on his Twitter site, he said the new development brings the cumulative infections in the country to 1,224,595 cases.
He said Selangor stayed as the main contributor with 8,792 cases reported followed by Kuala Lumpur with 2,483 cases, Kedah (1,371), Sabah (1,291), Johor (1,275) and Negeri Sembilan (986).
Meanwhile, Kelantan reported 938 cases, Penang with 776 cases, Sarawak (652), Perak (624), Pahang (610), Melaka (491), Terengganu (460), Putrajaya (122), Labuan (9) and Perlis (9).
Yesterday, Malaysia reported 20,596 new cases of the disease.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham, in his statement today, said of the 20,889 new cases, 273 cases (1.3 per cent) were from the third, fourth and fifth categories while 20,616 cases (98.7 per cent) comprised first and second categories.
On the overall, he said, only 4,292 cases (20.5 per cent) from the total cases reported today had a history of COVID-19 immunisation.
He said there were 160 deaths reported, among them involving 51 cases in Selangor, 32 cases in Johor, Kedah (22), Kuala Lumpur (17) and Negeri Sembilan (14).
A total of 1,096 people were being treated at intensive care units (ICU), with 545 patients requiring respiratory aid.
In addition, he said there were 16,394 cases of recovery, bringing the cumulative recoveries to 993,020 cases while there were 221,396 active cases currently.
On 34 new clusters identified, Dr Noor Hisham said 19 of them were workplace clusters, 12 community clusters and three clusters were linked to high-risk groups.
He said the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R-naught (Rt) in Malaysia yesterday was 1.08 with Kelantan recording the highest value, namely, 1.29, followed by Perak (1.23) and Penang (1.21).
In the meantime, Dr Noor Hisham also said Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest incidence rate for an average of seven days (from July 31 to August 6) for every 100,000 residents, namely, 105.7, followed by Selangor with 101.53, Putrajaya (75.64), Negeri Sembilan (71.75), Melaka (53.86) and Kedah (51.8).
“The hike in daily cases shows that Covid-19 infection has spread into the communities.
“The increase is also believed to be contributed by the spread of the Delta variant. Until to date, 199 Delta variant cases have been detected in the community.
“This variant causes a much faster and aggressive transmission while showing a lack of response to the treatment given,” said the statement. -Bernama
