Malaysia's COVID-19 cases break past 20k

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia hits yet another new record of daily COVID-19 cases today, with a whopping 20,596 cases, bringing the total number of cases confirmed to 1,203,706.

This is the highest number of daily infections recorded to date since the pandemic hit the country.

According to the data tweeted by the Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, the majority of the cases originate from Selangor, which reported 8,549 cases within the last 24-hours.

This is followed by Kuala Lumpur with 2,163, Kedah (1,446), Johor (1,300), Sabah (1,062) and Pulau Pinang (1,022).

Other states that registered fewer than 1-000 cases were Negeri Sembilan (989), Perak (916), Kelantan (772), Sarawak (759), Melaka (622),Terengganu (501), Pahang (426).

Meanwhile, there were 50 cases from Putrajaya, 15 at Labuan and four from Perlis.

New infections continued to outpace daily recoveries, which stood at 13,893, bringing the overall total of those recovered and discharged to 976,626.

Meanwhile, the total number of active cases rose to 217,061, continuing to strain the country’s stretched healthcare system.

Dr Noor Hisham said a total of 1,078 people are in intensive care units, with 549 of them requiring ventilator support.

However, the country saw its daily death toll dip to 164 today after consistently recording above 200 deaths for the past two days. 10,019 people have died so far from the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the country’s vaccination rate has picked up pace, with nearly 23 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered as of yesterday.