New COVID-19 cases drop almost five per cent

"The number of daily active cases for ME 38/2022 was 25,325, a four per cent drop from the previous week," Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement today.

He said local cases in ME 38/2022 dropped 4.8 per cent to 12,934 cases from 13,585 in ME 37/2022.

Imported COVID-19 cases in ME 38/2022 also dropped 31 per cent to 29 cases from 42 in ME 37/2022, he added.

He said recoveries in ME 38/2022 dropped 5.8 per cent to 13,677 cases from 14,513 in ME 37/2022.

"The number of deaths in ME 38/2022 increased by 29 per cent (from 31 cases to 40)," Dr Noor Hisham said.

He said the admission rate of COVID-19 patients to public hospitals per 100,000 population for all categories was lower in ME 38/2022 compared to ME 37/2022.

"The number of categories one and two patients dropped 7.1 per cent while categories three, four and five fell 11.5 per cent," he added.

Dr Noor Hisham, however, said COVID-19 positive cases monitored by COVID-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) throughout the country showed an increase in new cases undergoing home surveillance.

Based on a comparision of physical CAC data reported in ME 37/2022 and ME 38/2022, the number of patient visits to CAC dropped 0.5 per cent.

"The number of new COVID-19 cases undergoing home surveillance increased 102 per cent and the number of COVID-19 cases referred by CAC to hospitals was the same as in ME 37/2022," he added.

Dr Noor Hisham said from Jan 25, 2020 to Sept 24 this year, cumulative new COVID-19 cases in the country totalled 4,830,214.

During the same period, cumulative cases for recoveries from COVID-19 totalled 4,768,604, cumulative fatal cases numbered 36,348, and the cumulative number of clusters was 7,079, with 14 clusters being still active.