COVID: 23.4 pct increase in new cases last week - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: The number of new COVID-19 cases recorded in the 28th epidemiological week (ME 28/2022), from July 10 to 16, has increased by 23.4 per cent to 26,355, compared with 21,355 reported in ME 27/2022.

Health director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, said local COVID-19 cases in ME 28 also jumped by 23.4 per cent to 26,317 cases, from 21,325 cases reported in the previous week, while imported cases increased by 26.6 per cent to 38 cases, compared with 30 cases recorded in the previous week.

"The number of recovered cases in ME 28 has increased by 16.8 per cent to 19,138 cases, from 16,379 cases recorded in ME 27," he said in a statement today.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, the number of deaths in ME 28 also showed an increase of 2.6 per cent (38 to 39 cases), while the average daily active cases for ME 28 was 38,110 which is an increase of 18.6 per cent compared with the previous week.

He said that from Jan 25, 2020 (ME 4/2020) to July 16, 2022 (ME 28/2022) cumulative new COVID-19 cases nationwide was at 4,619,045; cumulative recoveries were 4,540,717 and cumulative deaths were 35,848 while cumulative clusters were 7,026, with 12 of them active.

Dr Noor Hisham said that overall, the admission of COVID-19 patients into health facilities, namely public hospitals and COVID-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRCs), per 100,000 population has increased by nine per cent in ME 28 compared with ME 27.

He said that there was a 33 per ent increase in the number of COVID-19 patient admissions to public hospitals per 100,000 population, with category one and two patients rising by 33 per cent while category three, four and five patients admissions also increasing by 33 per cent.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, in terms of the percentage of COVID-19 bed occupancy in ME 28, the use of non-critical beds increased by two per cent; Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds rose by three per cent; and there were no changes in the PKRC bed occupancy rate.

He said that positive COVID-19 cases monitored by the COVID-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) nationwide had shown an improvement, based on a comparison of physical CAC data reported in ME 27/2022 and ME 28/2022.

"The number of patient visits to CAC increased by 23.1 per cent; the number of new COVID-19 cases undergoing home monitoring increased by 41.3 per cent and the number of COVID-19 cases referred by CAC to PKRC and hospitals increased by 18.2 per cent," he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said that the trend of daily COVID-19 active cases monitored by virtual CAC at the end of ME 28 increased by 33.8 per cent to 71,326, compared with 53,306 cases reported at the end of ME 27.

On influenza-like-illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance, he said that, as of ME 28, positive ILI sample rates for COVID-19 jumped by 8.5 per cent, from 10.6 per cent in ME 27 to 11.5 per cent in ME 28, and the positive rate of the SARI samples remained at zero in ME 28.

-- BERNAMA