COVID-19 | Malaysia has recorded 865 new cases of Covid-19 today, including three deaths.
Of the new cases, 858 cases are locally acquired infections while the seven imported cases originate from China (four cases), Australia (one case), the United States (one case) and Qatar (one case).
The deaths recorded in the 24 hours up to noon today are:
Case 21,139 (Death 188): 85-year-old male in Sabah, died at Tawau Hospital. He had no pre-existing conditions.
Case 21,140 (Death 189): 52-year-old male in Sabah, died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He has a history of diabetes.
Case 21,141 (Death 190): 70-year-old woman in Sabah, died at Duchess of Kent Hospital. She had no pre-existing conditions.
The number of active Covid-19 cases now reach 7,456 cases, while the cumulative total is 21,363 cases.
There are 99 patients currently being treated in intensive care units, including 32 of whom who need a ventilator.
There are 455 patients who have recovered and been discharged today, most of whom are in Sabah (226 cases), Selangor (107 cases), and Kedah (97 cases).
Overall, 154 (17.8 percent) of the new infections are from four prisons, namely the Kepayan Prison cluster, the Seberang Perai Prison clusters, the Tembok cluster, and screening of detainees at Tapah Prison.
“These cases are isolated in prison and would not infect the community,” Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said at his daily Covid-19 briefing in Putrajaya today.
The breakdown of the new local cases are as follows:
Sabah (643 new cases)
Contact tracing: 343 cases
Existing clusters: 183 cases
Other screening: 171 cases
Selangor (101 cases)
Existing clusters: 71 cases
Contact tracing: 19 cases
Returnees from Sabah: 2 cases
Hentian cluster (new cluster): 1 case
Other screening: 8 cases
Labuan (34 cases)
Existing clusters: 33 cases
Returnees from Sabah: 1 case
Penang (26 cases)
Existing clusters: 24 cases
Contact tracing: 2 cases
Perak (18 cases)
Existing clusters: 9 cases
Contact tracing: 2 cases
Other screening: 7 cases
Malacca (16 cases)
Bukit cluster (new cluster): 11 cases
Screening at immigration detention depot: 3 cases
Contact tracing: 1 case
Screening of symptomatic patients: 1 case
Kuala Lumpur (6 cases)
Contact tracing: 4 cases
Existing clusters: 1 case
Returnees from Sabah: 1 case
Negeri Sembilan (4 cases)
Existing clusters: 2 cases
Contact tracing: 2 cases
Kedah (3 cases) from existing clusters.
Putrajaya (3 cases) from existing clusters.
Johor (2 cases)
Existing clusters: 1 case
Returnees from Sabah: 1 case
Pahang (1 case) from the screening of symptomatic patients.
Terengganu (1 case) from existing clusters.
Two new clusters have been reported today, one in Selangor and the other in Malacca.
The index case of the Hentian cluster in Hulu Langat, Selangor, is Case 18,664 who tested positive after showing symptoms of the disease on Oct 15. Contact tracing found other six cases.
As of noon today, another 120 people had been tested and their results are still pending.
Meanwhile, the Bukit cluster involves the districts of Melaka Tengah, Alor Gajah, and Jasin. The index case (Case 17,531) had undergone testing after showing symptoms of the disease and the result was positive on Oct 13.
Contact tracing identified another 14 cases in this cluster out of 89 tests done. One test result is still pending.
Of the 84 clusters that are currently active, 31 have recorded new cases today.
The Kepayan Prison cluster in Kota Kinabalu is the cluster with the most cases today, with 135 new cases bringing it to a total of 184 cases out of 304 people screened. This gives the cluster a high positivity rate of 60.52 percent.
This is followed by the Auto cluster that involves Proton’s engineering division in Shah Alam but has also spread to the districts of Klang, Kuala Langat, and Seremban.
The Health Ministry said 41 new cases have been detected up to noon today, bringing it to a total of 50 cases out of 551 people screened.
As for testing, Noor Hisham said 61 laboratories nationwide have conducted 19,096 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests for Covid-19 yesterday, out of a combined capacity of 58,266 tests daily.
However, the three laboratories in Sabah are still running over-capacity with 3,347 tests conducted out of a capacity of 2,600. In addition, 1,560 tests in Sabah had been outsourced to private laboratories.
As for antigen rapid tests (RTK-Ag), Noor Hisham said a total of 300,223 tests have been conducted, including 65,243 in Sabah.
This includes 2,049 RTK-Ag tests that were conducted yesterday, 163 of which had returned a positive result, he said.
