COVID: Record-high 360 fatalities Sunday - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Sunday recorded its highest daily COVID-19 death toll since the pandemic hit the country last year, with 360 fatalities, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the latest fatalities bring the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the country to 10,749 cases.

The deaths involve 296 Malaysians and 64 foreigners, while 85 cases were brought in dead (BID) involving 56 locals and 29 foreigners.

"221 deaths recorded in Selangor, 41 cases in Kuala Lumpur, Melaka (20), Perak (17), Penang (15), Johor (14), Kedah (seven) and six each in Negeri Sembilan and Pahang.

"There are five cases each in Sabah and Terengganu, two in Putrajaya, and one in Kelantan," he said in a statement on the development of COVID-19 today.

Earlier, in his tweet, Dr Noor Hisham said that a total of 18,688 new cases were reported today, bringing the cumulative number of cases to 1,262,540.

On the new cases, Dr Noor Hisham said that out of the total cases, 15,755 involved Malaysians and 2,923 foreigners with 97.9 per cent being COVID-19 categories 1 and 2 patients, while only 2.1 per cent are from categories 3, 4 and 5.

He said the figure is based on the current clinical situation of those who were diagnosed with COVID-19.

"There are cases that remain in the same category throughout the period of infection, but there are also those that change their health status, either improving to a lower category or declining to a higher category," he said.

He also said that only 4,460 cases (23.9 per cent) of the total cases reported today had a history of COVID-19 immunisation.

During the same period, active cases have now reached 225,393, while a total of 1,095 COVID-19 patients are being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with 571 of them needing respiratory assistance.

Meanwhile, 39 new clusters were detected today, comprising 18 workplace clusters, 15 community clusters, two each for the detention centre and the high-risk group clusters, and one each for the religious and higher education clusters.

As of yesterday, he said, the infectivity rate (RT) in the country was 1.08, with the states recording the highest RT value being Perlis with 1.47, followed by Kelantan (1.25), Sabah (1.18) and Penang (1.18); other states have recorded RTs above 1.0 except Labuan (0).

-- BERNAMA