KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 19,740 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Malaysia today, a drop by over 800 cases compared to 20,546 cases yesterday.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in a Twitter post, said the new development brings the cumulative cases in the country to 1.42 million.

"Nine states recorded four-digit new cases with the highest number of cases reported in Selangor at 5,706 cases followed by Sabah (1,728); Kedah (1,592); Sarawak (1,566) and Johor (1,510)," he said.

The Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur also recorded 1,360 cases; Penang (1,251); Kelantan (1,227) and Melaka (1,120).

Dr Noor Hisham said Perak recorded 938 cases; Terengganu (688); Pahang (646); Negeri Sembilan (343), Federal Territory of Putrajaya (43), Perlis (20) and Federal Territory of Labuan (two).

Dr Noor Hisham in his statement today said 298 (1.5 per cent) of the positive cases logged today were patients from Categories three, four and five while the remaining 19,442 cases (98.5 per cent) were in Categories one and two.

He said a total of 16,805 cases (85.1 per cent) reported today have not received their COVID-19 vaccination or were not fully vaccinated.

He added 17,450 recoveries were recorded today, adding that the cumulative total of recovered cases now stood at 1,162,578, while active cases stood at 249,277 cases.

On new COVID-19 fatalities, he said a total of 274 deaths were reported involving 100 cases in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur (39), Johor (31), Kedah (21), Penang (19), Melaka (16), Sabah (15), Perak (10), Kelantan (nine), five cases each in Sarawak and Negeri Sembilan, three cases in Terengganu and one case in Pahang.

He said of the total deaths, 211 victims were locals and 63 foreigners, adding that 77 victims died at home or 'brought-in-dead' (BID) involving 28 locals and 49 non-citizens.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,047 cases were being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) with 520 patients needing respiratory assistance, he said.

Of the 35 new clusters identified, Dr Noor Hisham said 21 clusters were linked to workplaces, 11 community clusters, two high-risk group clusters and one higher education cluster.

He said the R-naught (Rt) infectivity rate in Malaysia yesterday was 1.05 with all states registering values above 1.0 except Labuan (0), Putrajaya (0.90) and Kuala Lumpur (0.99), adding that Perlis reported the highest Rt value at 1.29, followed by Kelantan (1.19), Sabah (1.16), Penang (1.15), Sarawak (1.14), Perak (1.11), Johor (1.10), Kedah (1.09), Pahang (1.08), Terengganu (1.05), Selangor (1.02), Negeri Sembilan and Melaka respectively (1.0).

-- BERNAMA