Death toll breaches 100 mark for sixth straight day
Covid-19 claimed another 138 lives yesterday, breaching the 100 mark for the sixth consecutive day.
This is the highest daily fatalities since Covid-19 hit the country last year.
The country on July 8 reported 135 deaths.
Malaysia reported 102 fatalities last Monday, 125 on Tuesday, 118 on Wednesday, 110 on Thursday and 115 deaths on Friday.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 46 deaths were reported in Selangor, 20 in Negri Sembilan, and 16 each in Kuala Lumpur and Johor. They are followed by Melaka (11), Kedah (seven), Perak (four), Penang (three), Terengganu (two) and Sabah (one).
Of the total deaths, 128 were Malaysians.
Dr Noor Hisham said 18 of them were brought in dead. Only 10 had no chronic ailments.
He added that currently there were 908 cases being treated in intensive care units, with 425 of them requiring breathing assistance.
Malaysia recorded 12,528 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, breaching the 11,000 mark for the fifth consecutive day. Of the total, 19 were imported cases.
On Tuesday, 11,079 new cases were recorded, followed by 11,618 on Wednesday, 13,215 on Thursday and 12,541 fresh infections on Friday.
Dr Noor Hisham said 98.2 per cent of the new cases reported were in categories One and Two, where patients displayed only mild symptoms or none at all.
“A total of 6,840 cases (54.6 per cent) are in Category One and 5,468 cases (43.6 per cent) are in Category Two.
“We have recorded 122 cases (0.9 per cent) in Category Three, where the patients have pneumonia, followed by 44 cases (0.4 per cent) in Category Four, where the patients require oxygen (therapy).
“There are 64 cases (0.5 per cent) in Category Five, where the patients are in critical condition.”
Dr Noor Hisham added that 4,985 cases were recorded in Selangor, making it the state with the highest number of cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur (1,740) and Negri Sembilan (1,280).
Kedah recorded 701 new cases, followed by Sabah with 647, Johor (625), Melaka (569), Perak (428), Penang (396), Sarawak (388), Pahang (317), Kelantan (211) and Terengganu (177).
“Putrajaya and Labuan recorded 41 and 22 new cases respectively, and Perlis recorded one new case.”
With the new cases yesterday, the total number of infections in the country stands at 905,851.
“A total of 6,629 new recoveries were reported, bringing the total number of recoveries to 779,171, or 86.02 per cent.”
Dr Noor Hisham said 28 new clusters were detected, bringing the total number of active clusters to 906.
“Workplace-related Covid-19 clusters continue to dominate, making up 19 of the 28 new clusters detected. The remaining six clusters are community-related, high-risk group (two) and education (one).”
He said Putrajaya recorded the highest infectivity rate (Rt) at 1.31, much higher than the national average, which stood at 1.19. Other states which recorded an Rt of above 1.0 were Terengganu (1.25), Negri Sembilan (1.21), Kedah (1.20), Selangor (1.19), Melaka (1.18), Kuala Lumpur (1.17), Penang (1.14), Kelantan (1.11), Pahang (1.10), Perak (1.10), Sabah (1.09) and Johor (1.08).