KUALA LUMPUR: Only 2.1 per cent or 144 cases of the 6,709 new cases of COVID-19 reported as of 12 noon today, involved individuals in Categories Three, Four and Five, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Category Three refers to patients with pneumonia, Category Four as requiring oxygen and Category Five as needing ventilator assistance.

He said the remaining 6,565 cases or 97.9 per cent were in Categories One and Two, with none and minor symptoms respectively.

"Out of the new cases, 6,703 cases were local transmission of the virus, involving 6,454 Malaysians and 249 foreign nationals, while six were imported cases comprising five Malaysians and one foreigner," he said in a statement on the COVID-19 development today.

Dr Noor Hisham said a total of 10,833 patients had recovered today, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries in the country to 2,206,502.

He said 762 cases were being treated at the intensive care units (ICU) involving 702 confirmed as positive for COVID-19 while another 60 suspected or probable cases and those under investigation.

"A total of 398 cases require respiratory support, with 298 of these confirmed as positive, while 100 are suspected or probable cases and under investigation, he added.

Dr Noor Hisham also disclosed that nine new clusters were detected, with four of them being community clusters while two each were work place and high-risk group clusters and one linked to education cluster.

He noted the COVID-19 infectivity rate or R-naught (RT) in Malaysia yesterday was at 0.87 with Putrajaya recording the highest at 1.05.

Death data and other data on the current situation of COVID-19 infection in Malaysia will be uploaded on the GitHub site and the COVIDNOW website via https://covidnow.moh.gov.my.

-- BERNAMA