KUALA LUMPUR (March 10): Malaysia reported 1,448 new Covid-19 cases today, making it the fifth consecutive day new cases remain below the 2,000 level, according to the Health Ministry.

This brought the total Covid-19 infections in the country to 317,717, said Health director-general Tan Sri Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement today.

Another five deaths were also reported overnight, taking the number of fatalities due to the virus to 1,191. Two of them were reported in Selangor, while one each was found in Johor, Melaka and Sabah. All involved Malaysians, aged between 43 and 72 years.

Selangor, which reported 561 new infections, continued to report the highest number of cases, followed by Johor (273), Sarawak (199) and Kuala Lumpur (103).

There were 2,137 new recoveries, lifting the total number of recovered cases to 298,516. The number of active cases, meanwhile, dipped further to 18,010 from 18,704 reported on Tuesday, as recoveries continue to outpace new infections. This marked the 28th straight day that actives have fallen, from the high of 52,186 on Feb 10.

As for the new infections today, 10 were imported cases while the rest were local transmissions.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said five more Covid-19 infection clusters have been identified by the ministry — two of which were linked to workplaces, while two others were community clusters and one was an imported cluster.

Two of the workplace clusters are the Dagang Permai cluster in Hulu Langat, Selangor, with 16 infections and the Parit Penyengat Darat cluster in Muar, Johor, with 124 infections. The community clusters are the Sungai Puteh cluster in Hulu Langat, Selangor (21 infections) and the Melor cluster in Pusa, Sarawak (14 infections). The lone imported cluster was Pona, identified in Johor Bahru, Johor (eight infections).

To date, 1,217 clusters have been reported in the country, of which 449 are still active.