COVID: New cases drop below 10,000 mark yesterday - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: New COVID-19 cases recorded a downward trend for nine consecutive days and hit below the 10,000 mark yesterday when 8,112 cases were reported, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

Prior to this, the number of new infections decreased to 10,177 cases on April 9 from 14,944 cases the day before. On April 7, the figure dropped for six consecutive days with 11,994 cases reported.

The last time Malaysia recorded new cases below the 10,000 mark was on Feb 5 this year with 9,117 cases, before it soars to reach 32,800 cases on March 8.

Dr Noor Hisham said of the new cases reported yesterday, 8,056 cases or 99.31 per cent were in categories one and two.

"Some 56 cases or 0.69 per cent were in categories three, four and five," he said in a statement today.

He also said that only one new cluster was reported, bringing the number of active clusters so far to 130.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, the country's infectivity rate (Rt) decreased slightly to 0.82 yesterday from 0.83 on April 9.

Meanwhile, he said only two states registered COVID-19 critical or intensive care unit (ICU) bed occupancy of over 50 per cent, namely the Federal Territory of Putrajaya at 100 per cent and Selangor at 53 per cent.

For non-ICU bed usage, he said only Putrajaya had surpassed the 50 per cent mark at 59 per cent, while no state recorded occupancy of more than 50 per cent at COVID-19 Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC).

-- BERNAMA