Single-digit trend continues

Numbers across board have dropped, says Health dG

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia continued its single-digit trend in daily Covid19 cases with four new infections as the country entered the 100th day since enforcing the movement control order (MCO).

This is also the third day in a row that the number of new cases is lower than 10. Cumulatively, the number of infections in the country is now 8,600 cases.

There is also no new death, which means the toll remains at 121 for the 11th day running.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the four cases were Malaysians, of which three were imported cases of Malaysians returning from Singapore, Britain and Egypt.

He said the sole local transmission case was detected from a screening process conducted on Severe Acute Respiratory Infection patients at Hospital Enche’ Besar Hajjah Khalsom in Johor.

He said 40 more patients were discharged, bringing the total number of those recovered from Covid19 in Malaysia to 8,271.

“This translates to a recovery rate of 96.2% out of the total number of cases in the country.

“There are now only 208 active cases being treated at health facilities nationwide with two patients still in intensive care unit (ICU) and none on ventilator support,” he said yesterday.

Dr Noor Hisham added that Malaysia had come a long way since the MCO was enforced on March 18 when its daily capacity to conduct RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests were 6,210.

“A hundred days after the MCO, the country has the ability to conduct 36,812 RT-PCR tests.

“We have 6,397 beds prepared for Covid-19 patients and although 442 ICU beds have been set aside for Covid-19 patients, we have now allowed patients of different cases to use them.

“The number of active cases has gone down to 208 and the death rate has gone down to 1.4% out of the total number of cases.

“This shows that Malaysia is in a recovery phase.”

Dr Noor Hisham said the success in “flattening the curve” of Covid-19 cases and also reducing the transmission of the virus within the community was due to the cooperation of everyone including the community.