186 cases of Omicron variant detected since Jan 14 - Health DG

Apart from this, the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) detected 28 new cases while the Institute of Health and Community Medicine, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (IHCM-UNIMAS) detected 26 new cases.

"This brings the cumulative figure for SARS-CoV-2 infections categorised as VOC and Variant of Interest (VOI) to 6,432 cases. Of this number, 6,412 cases are VOC while 20 cases are VOI," he said in a statement today.

Meanwhile, he said new COVID-19 cases increased to 3,245 today from 2,342 yesterday, bringing the cumulative figure for infections to 2,813,934 as at noon today.

Dr Noor Hisham said 98.8 per cent or 3,206 of the new cases were patients in categories one and two while only 39 cases or 1.2 per cent were in categories three, four and five. COVID-19 is a five-category disease, with category five being the most severe.

"There were 3,093 recoveries, bringing the cumulative total for recovered cases to 2,741,355, while 183 cases are being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with 84 requiring ventilators," he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said 17 new clusters were detected today, raising the number of active clusters to 188, while the infectivity rate (Rt) in the country was recorded at 0.98.

He said the State Health Department flood operations rooms had been closed in stages beginning with Perak, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah, Pahang, Melaka, Sarawak and Johor.

He said no new COVID-19 cases were reported among flood victims and the number stayed at 471 for the duration of the floods.