PUTRAJAYA, Oct 18 — The number of new Covid-19 cases in the country hit a record high when 871 cases were reported today, taking the infection tally to 20,498 cases.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said with the latest additions, there were now 7,049 active cases.
Also, seven fatalities were reported as of noon today, which takes Malaysia’s Covid-19 death toll to 187.
However, there was also some good news after Dr Noor Hisham announced 701 overnight recoveries, a single-day record, with the recovery tally now standing at 13,262 cases, or 64.7 per cent of the case tally.
“A total of 97 cases (11.1 per cent) reported today are from the Tembok cluster, Prison Remand cluster, Seberang Perai Prison cluster and the Kepayan Prison cluster. The cases were already isolated within the prisons and did not infect outside communities.
“The states located in the Klang Valley account for 9.6 per cent of the total number of cases. Sabah continues to record the highest number of cases with 702 cases (80.6 per cent)," he said at a media conference on the latest Covid-19 developments here today.
Dr Noor Hisham said out of the 871 new infections, five were import cases who got infected abroad, including three Malaysians, all of whom are in Selangor, namely from India (two cases), Nepal (two cases) and Singapore (one case).
He said Selangor had the second-highest number of new cases after Sabah with 72 infections, followed by Penang (45), Perak (10), Labuan and Kedah (nine each), Kuala Lumpur (seven), Sarawak (five), Negeri Sembilan (three), Terengganu (two) and Johor and Melaka (one each).
There are 86 cases being treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 28 of whom are intubated.
Also, four new clusters were identified overnight, taking the number of active clusters in the country to 85, he added.
— Bernama
