Still on upward trend, daily infections hit 2,551

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 figures remained on the upward trend as its daily infections rose to 2,551.

This makes it the second day in a row that new Covid-19 cases numbered over 2,000.

Before this, the last time Malaysia’s daily cases went above 2,000 was on March 5 when there were 2,154 cases that day.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Sarawak saw 960 cases, which is 37.6% of Malaysia’s total yesterday.

“From Sarawak’s total, 892 cases or 92.9% were those uncovered from clusters and contact tracing activities,” he said in the ministry’s daily Covid-19 updates.

Contributing to Sarawak’s rise is the Jalan Puncak Borneo cluster, linked to a police training centre (Pulapol) in Kuching, which saw a spike of 315 new cases yesterday.

Six states saw three digit figures yesterday: Sarawak (960), Selangor (590), Kuala Lumpur (245), Kelantan (164), Sabah (143), Johor (121).

There were two fatalities yesterday, taking the country’s Covid-19 death toll up to 1,365.

Dr Noor Hisham said both death cases were reported at Hospital Sungai Buloh, involving two Malaysian men, aged 79 and 61, who had comorbidities such as high blood pressure and heart disease.

“The ministry extends its condolences to the families,” he said.

The number of active cases have now gone up to 18,600.

There are currently 227 patients under intensive care, with 91 requiring ventilator support.

The Health Ministry has also identified seven new Covid-19 clusters, taking the total number of active ones to 346.

Dr Noor Hisham said three of the clusters are linked to workplaces, two are outbreaks at detention centres, one is classified as a community outbreak while another is related to the education sector.

The Jepak cluster in Sarawak which is categorised as a community outbreak has so far registered 50 positive cases.

“This cluster involves an event held in Kampung Jepak in Bintulu on April 3. Its index case had developed symptoms and tested positive for Covid-19 on April 8.

“To date, 402 individuals had to be screened, and 50 have been found to be positive,” he said.

The Jalan Balakong cluster in Selangor is linked to workers of a construction company.

“A targeted screening exercise was conducted on their workers there from March 25. After 29 individuals were screened, 19 were found to be positive,” he said.