KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 8): Malaysia's daily number of new Covid-19 cases breached 13,000 for the first time in about five months on Tuesday (Feb 8) at 13,944 cases from 11,034 on Monday, according to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The last time the country reported over 13,000 daily new Covid-19 cases was on Sept 26, 2021 when the number of fresh infections stood at 13,104.
However, only 73 cases or 0.5% of cases reported on Monday were in Categories 3,4 and 5 that require hospitalisation, while the remaining 13,871 cases were in Categories 1 and 2 (those that show little to no symptoms), according to Dr Noor Hisham.
In a statement, he said, 138 patients were being treated in intensive care units, including 71 patients who needed ventilators to breathe.
Some 5,421 patients recovered from the coronavirus on Tuesday. These raised total recoveries so far to 2,824,071, versus 2,939,198 total confirmed Covid-19 infections.
Active cases breached 70,000 on Feb 7
On Monday (Feb 7), active cases which carry high transmission risks climbed to 74,561 — the highest level seen since Oct 24 last year (75,948 cases).
Selangor, the most populous state, led with the highest number of active cases with 19,686, according to the ministry's Github data.
This was followed by Johor (11,349); Sabah (10,130); Kuala Lumpur (5,877); Kedah (5,810); Kelantan (3,688); Pahang (3,654); Negeri Sembilan (3,356); Penang (3,414); Melaka (2,382); Perak (2,170); Terengganu (1,437); Putrajaya (787); Perlis (488); Sarawak (261) and Labuan (72).
The tally of deaths linked to the coronavirus stood at 32,043 after nine deaths were reported on Monday. Out of the nine deaths, four were reported in Perak, and one each in Kedah, Melaka, Pahang, Penang and Selangor.
The country's basic reproduction number (R-nought or R0) as of Monday stood at 1.32. R0, an indicator of how contagious the infection is, shows the average number of people who will contract the disease from a single infected person.
Based on the ministry's COVIDNOW portal, the average percentage occupancy rate of hospital beds was 67.3% on Feb 7, increasing from 63.4% on Feb 5.
53.3% of Malaysian adult population received booster dose
A total of 12.473 million individuals, representing 53.3% of the country's adult population, have received their booster shot so far, since October last year. Meanwhile, 22.93 million individuals, or 98% of the adult population, have received their two-dose vaccination.
Follow our Covid-19 vaccination tracker to see where we are in the race to herd immunity.
COVIDNOW portal showed that those who have received their booster shot or two-dose vaccination recorded a lower number of infections per 100,000 people, compared with unvaccinated individuals.
For the unvaccinated, the seven-day moving average of cases per 100,000 individuals stood at 329.5 as of Monday.
As for those who have completed their two-dose vaccination, the figure stood at 180, while for those who have gotten their booster shot, the figure was 109.7.