More deaths, more cases, more clusters

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 death toll is now 1,400, after the country reported 11 more fatalities from the coronavirus.

In his daily Covid-19 updates, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the deaths involved those aged 61 to 82.

“Six of the death cases were in Sabah, four in Sarawak and one in Kuala Lumpur.

“Nine cases involved Malaysian citizens while two were foreign nationals.

“The ministry expresses its condolences to their family members,” he added.

Most of the deceased had underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, said Dr Noor Hisham.

One of them, a 75-year-old foreign woman, was declared as “brought in dead” at Tawau Hospital in Sabah. The woman had a history of diabetes and hypertension.

Malaysia’s Covid-19 daily figures also remained above the 2,000 mark for the seventh straight day, after 2,340 more cases were registered.

Selangor recorded the highest increase with 526 new cases, which is 22.5% of the country’s total cases.

Six other states recorded three-digit increases: Sarawak with 429 cases, Kelantan (370 cases), Kuala Lumpur (291), Sabah (172), Johor (170) and Penang (111).

Active cases continued to climb, with the country’s latest figures standing at 21,687.

Currently, there are 248 patients in intensive care, with 101 of them requiring ventilator support.

Yesterday, 1,910 more Covid-19 patients were discharged from treatment.

The total number of recoveries in the country is now 358,726.

There were also 11 new Covid-19 clusters uncovered by the Health Ministry.

Dr Noor Hisham said four of the new clusters involved the education sector, three are classified as community outbreaks while another two are workplace clusters.

There is also one cluster related to a religious event and another linked to inmates at a detention centre.

An outbreak at an education centre in Hulu Langat, Selangor, resulted in the discovery of 50 positive cases under the cluster.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said to date, there have been no cases of deaths caused by Covid-19 vaccines among health workers, contrary to social media claims.

“Refrain from spreading information from unverified sources.

“Sharing such posts will cause public confusion. Refer to the ministry’s official social media pages or contact the Crisis and Preparedness Response Centre (CPRC) for verified information,” he added.