COVID-19: 23 Local infections among 26 new cases - Health D-G

The number of positive COVID-19 cases continues to rise, with 26 new cases reported today, of which 23 are local transmissions, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said this took the total number of positive cases in the country to 9,175, with 219 of them being active cases.

He added that of the 23 local transmissions, 20 cases involved Malaysians and three foreigners.

"As for the local transmissions involving Malaysians, Kedah had three cases from the new Sala cluster, 10 from the Tawar cluster and one from the Muda cluster. In Kuala Lumpur, there was one case from workplace screening and one close contact screening of patient 8,688.

"In Penang, there were two Tawar cluster screening cases of close contacts of a positive case (patient 9,129) while Johor and Perlis each recorded one case from pre-surgery screenings,” he said in a press release on the development of COVID-19 today.

The three local transmissions involving non-Malaysians comprised two screening cases of illegal immigrants detained in Negeri Sembilan and one workplace screening in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, the three imported cases who were infected abroad are from Austria, the United States and Vietnam, with all three cases in Kuala Lumpur involving two Malaysians and one non-citizen.

Dr Noor Hisham said three patients had fully recovered from COVID-19 today, taking the total number of recoveries to 8,831 cases (96.3 per cent of the total number of cases).

He said that six cases were being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU), with one requiring respiratory assistance.

There were also no new COVID-19-related deaths recorded today, and the toll remains at 125 (1.36 per cent of the total cases).

-- BERNAMA