KUALA LUMPUR (June 14): Malaysia reported 4,949 new daily Covid-19 cases today — the lowest number in 27 days — bringing cumulative confirmed infections to 662,457.
The last time the daily number of new cases was below 5,000-level was on May 18 when 4,865 new infections were reported.
The seven-day moving average of daily new cases has been on a downward trend for the 10th consecutive day to 5,767 today from the peak of 7,434 cases on June 5.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announced 60 more fatalities linked to the coronavirus — 18 in Selangor, nine in Johor, eight in Kuala Lumpur, seven in Negeri Sembilan, six in Sarawak, four in Labuan, and two in Penang. The Covid-19 virus has killed a total of 3,968 over the past 15 months.
Active cases, which carry high transmission risks, dropped further to 71,625 from an all-time high of 86,628 on June 6.
Currently, 921 Covid-19 patients are being treated in intensive care units, of whom 459 are on ventilators.
According to Dr Noor Hisham, the number of daily recoveries came in at 6,558, higher than new infections. To date, some 586,864 have recovered from Covid-19 in the country, resulting in a recovery rate of 88.6%.
In terms of Covid-19 testing, 70,044 individuals tested on Monday nationwide — the lowest number of tests recorded in a month.
In comparison, 90,238 individuals tested last Saturday of whom 5,793 were positive, and 80,130 tested (5,304 positive) last Sunday. It is worth noting that the highest Covid-19 cases recorded was 9,020 on May 29, from 126,480 individuals tested.
Selangor, which remains as the worst hit state, saw the number of cases fall to 1,523 today from 1,973 the day before — marking the third straight day of declining below the 2,000-mark.
Sarawak came in second with 744 cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur (503), Johor (430) and Negeri Sembilan (323).
According to the World Health Organization, Malaysia is now third in ASEAN in terms of total number of confirmed coronavirus infections, after Indonesia (1.92 million) and the Philippines (1.32 million).