COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported 3,346 new Covid-19 cases today, bringing the cumulative infections to 2,802,263.
The new infections were more than the number of Covid-19 patients who recovered, which totalled 3,052. This is expected to contribute to a rise in the number of active cases.
- Patients in ICU: 204
- Intubated: 95
Nationally, the number of hospital admissions of confirmed Covid-19 patients in the last seven days has declined by 2.2 percent compared to the preceding week.
As of today, the number of Covid-19 patients (including suspected ones) in the intensive care unit (ICU) is 19.7 percent lower compared to a week ago.
Those who require intubation have also declined by 16.7 percent from a week ago.
The hospital utilisation rate is at 65.8 percent while the ICU utilisation rate is at 55.4 percent.
The infectivity rate is at 1.00 as of Jan 13. Any further increase could lead to an exponential growth in fresh infections.
The number has already surpassed 1.00 in Kuala Lumpur (1.07), Sabah (1.05), Putrajaya (1.05), Malacca (1.02), and Negeri Sembilan (1.01). The R-number in Selangor is (1.00).
To date, 172 Covid-19 clusters are still active, including three new ones reported today.
The ongoing clusters have fallen by 5.5 percent from the 182 active clusters a week ago.
The Health Ministry will only publish today's breakdown of new cases by states after midnight on its CovidNow portal.
The breakdown by states for yesterday (Jan 13), where 3,684 new cases were reported, is as follows:
Selangor (1,083)
Johor (456)
Kuala Lumpur (309)
Kelantan (279)
Sabah (257)
Pahang (253)
Malacca (245)
Kedah (185)
Penang (164)
Negeri Sembilan (158)
Perak (153)
Terengganu (75)
Putrajaya (23)
Sarawak (18)
Labuan (18)
Perlis (8)
The fresh infections in Selangor are the highest in 26 days. It was the second consecutive day where fresh infections in Selangor was in the four digits.
Prior to that, the daily new cases in Selangor were under 1,000 since Dec 19 last year.
Johor is also seeing a surge, recording the highest number of new cases in 22 days.
Meanwhile, whole-genome sequencing was successfully conducted on 486 Covid-19 samples between Jan 10 and 14. All of them turned out to be the Delta variant.
It should be noted a disproportionate portion of the sequencing was carried out by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak on samples collected in the state. It accounts for nearly two-thirds of the sequencing done during the period, even though the state has some of the lowest case numbers in the country.
Previously, during sequencing on 99 samples from Jan 3 to 10, 8.1 percent of the samples turned out to be the Omicron variant while the rest were the Delta variant.
