KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 4): Malaysia reported 19,819 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday — a record number of daily infections — up 15.87% from yesterday's 17,105.
The previous record high was 17,786 registered on Saturday (July 31).
Daily fatalities also climbed to a new high of 257 — from the previous record of 219 posted on Monday (Aug 2) — raising the country's death toll to 9,855.
The Covid-19 virus has killed a total of 9,384 individuals in this year alone, compared with just 471 deaths in all of 2020.
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Of the latest fatalities, 91 deaths were reported in Selangor, 74 in Kuala Lumpur, 25 in Johor, 24 in Melaka, nine in Negeri Sembilan, nine in Perak, eight in Kedah, six in Sabah, four in Terengganu, three in Penang, three in Kelantan and one in Pahang.
In tandem with the rise in new infections, active cases continued to climb to 210,522 — the second consecutive day of staying above the 200,000 mark — with the number of patients in intensive care units rising slightly to 1,069 from 1,066 the day before.
A total of 553 Covid-19 patients need ventilators to breathe, according to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement.
Meanwhile, 12,704 patients were declared cured, adding to the 962,733 individuals having recovered out of 1.18 million Malaysians who have tested positive for the virus.
Selangor's cases rise to 8,377 — second-highest daily figure
Selangor still topped the list today with the most infections at 8,377 — the second-highest daily figure recorded by the worst-hit state after 8,500 new cases were reported on July 25.
Kuala Lumpur came in second today with 2,467 infections, up from 2,309 a day ago.
This was followed by Kedah (1,371), Johor (1,162), Kelantan (1,003), Sabah (949), Penang (867), Negeri Sembilan (800), Perak (662), Pahang (558), Sarawak (552), Melaka (508), Terengganu (481), Putrajaya (46), Perlis (11) and Labuan (five).
In terms of testing numbers, a total of 156,483 Covid-19 tests were conducted today, compared with 144,857 yesterday, with today's positivity rate recorded at 12.67%.
Only 18.1% of Covid-19 cases vaccinated
Dr Noor Hisham said 19,444 cases were in Categories 1 and 2, while 375 cases were in Categories 3, 4 and 5.
But overall, only 3,592 or 18.1% of latest infections were vaccinated, according to him.
The breakdown of cases and unvaccinated individuals is as follows:
• 10,001 cases in Category 1 (no symptoms); 91.6% unvaccinated
• 9,443 cases in Category 2 (mild symptoms); 71.7% unvaccinated
• 180 cases in Category 3 (patients with pneumonia); 66.1% unvaccinated
• 108 cases in Category 4 (pneumonia requiring oxygen therapy); 90.7% unvaccinated
• 87 cases in Category 5 (critical cases requiring assisted ventilation); 90.8% unvaccinated
483,368 vaccine doses jabbed on Aug 3
Malaysia administered 483,368 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday (Aug 3), up from 468,526 jabs on the previous day.
A total of 240,394 individuals received their first dose yesterday, while the remaining 242,974 were second shots, according to the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), citing data from the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF).
Cumulatively, 22.15 million Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered nationwide.
A total of 14.71 million people or 45% of the nation's population had received at least their first jab, including 7.44 million or 22.8% who were fully inoculated.