Covid-19 cases likely to increase in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah recorded 198 new cases on Tuesday, with more than half sporadic infections.

No fatalities were recorded in the past 24 hours in the state.

Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said with 58 per cent of the cases sporadic compared to 55 per cent the previous day, it is likely to result in an increase in new cases in the coming days.

“We are taking into account that the lifting of various restrictions on social and economic activities beginning this month will to some extent contribute to the increasing number of cases in short term,” he said.

Masidi added 193 out of 198 new patients on April 5 are in Categories 1 and Category 2, three in Category 4 and two in Category 5.

There are no patients in Category 3.

Meanwhile, there were more recoveries than new Covid19 infections in Malaysia on Monday with 23,302 recovered cases, bringing the cumulative figure for recoveries to 4,041,723, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said new cases continued their downtrend below the 15,000 mark when 10,002 daily cases were reported Monday, bringing cumulative total to 4,256,469 since the outbreak early last year.

He said 5,495 or 54.94 per cent of the new cases are in category one, 4,418 cases or 44.17 per cent are in category two, 30 cases (0.30 per cent) in category three, 33 cases (0.33 per cent) in category four, and 26 cases (0.26 per cent) in category five.

“Of the new cases, 9,904 are local infections and 98 are imported cases. A total of 236 cases need treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 140 cases require ventilators,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

On the usage of health facilities dedicated to Covid-19 cases, Dr Noor Hisham said only two states exceeded 50 per cent in bed occupancy for critical or ICU cases, with Kuala Lumpur at 60 per cent and Perlis, 55 per cent.

For non-ICU bed usage, only Putrajaya at 69 per cent and Selangor at 56 per cent surpassed the 50 per cent mark, while bed usage at Low-Risk Covid19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRC) nationwide was below 50 per cent.

The national Covid-19 infectivity rate or Rt value is 0.86, with Selangor still registering the highest at 1.03 and Kelantan the lowest at 0.68, he added.