COVID: Upward trend continues, 5,522 new infections reported Friday - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: New COVID-19 cases in Malaysia continue to show an upward trend after 5,522 infections were recorded today compared to 5,439 cases yesterday.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said with this latest development, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in the country was at 2,855,930 as of noon today.

He said 5,483 of the 5,522 new cases were in categories one and two while 39 were in categories three, four and five.

"A total of 373 or 69.4 per cent of the new infections are import cases while 5,149 cases or 96.1 per cent are local transmissions.

"There are 127 cases currently in the intensive care unit, with 70 requiring respiratory assistance," he said in a statement today.

The upward trend began on Jan 24 with 3,214 cases reported, going up to 4,066 the next day and 4,744 cases on Jan 26.

Dr Noor Hisham also said that 3,285 recovered cases were reported today, taking the cumulative number of recoveries to 2,773,948 cases.

Also, he said 23 new clusters were identified today, adding that there are now 289 active clusters in the country, while the country's infectivity rate (Rt) was currently at 1.15. Negeri Sembilan had the highest Rt as of yesterday with 1.21.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said 62 new COVID-19 cases involving variants of concern (VOC) were reported since Jan 25.

"All of these cases are Delta variant cases. This brings the cumulative number of cases infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus categorised as VOC and variants of interest (VOI) to 7,118 cases.

"Of that total, 7,098 are VOC cases while 20 cases were VOI," he said.

-- BERNAMA