KUALA LUMPUR (June 17): Malaysia reported 5,738 new Covid-19 cases, representing a positivity rate of 6.97% from 82,369 people who were tested in the 24 hours as of noon today.

This raised total cases across the country to 678,764, said Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

All but three of today's cases were local transmissions, he said in a statement.

Selangor remained the state with the most cases at 1,858, but the number was lower than the 1,914 reported yesterday.

However, Negeri Sembilan saw a spike in infections to 1,086 from 607 yesterday. Dr Noor Hisham said 392 cases in the state were identified from clusters, 444 from close contacts of positive coronavirus patients and 250 from other Covid-19 screenings.

In third place was Kuala Lumpur with 641 cases, up from 480 yesterday.

Dr Noor Hisham said 60 more people died from the virus today, raising the tally of fatalities nationwide to 4,202.

Twenty of the fatalities were confirmed in Selangor, 10 in Negeri Sembilan, nine in Johor, four each in Sabah and Labuan, three in Kuala Lumpur, two each in Sarawak, Melaka and Kedah, as well as one each in Kelantan, Perak, Terengganu and Penang.

Daily recoveries continued to outpace fresh infections at 7,530 today, bringing down the number of active cases to 66,097 — the lowest since May 27 (69,408). Total recoveries increased to 608,465.

Dr Noor Hisham said the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units dropped to 909 from an all-time high of 924 yesterday. A total of 441 patients were on ventilators.

Meanwhile, another 25 clusters were reported today, lifting the number of active clusters to 795.

The 25 clusters comprised 20 workplace clusters, four community clusters and one education cluster. They were detected in Selangor, Johor, Kedah, Penang, Sarawak, Negeri Sembilan, and Kuala Lumpur.

To date, 2,557 clusters have been reported in the country, of which 1,762 have been declared ended.