PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia recorded 4,611 new Covid-19 cases, making it the second time this month it has gone below the 5,000 mark.
The last time the country had fewer than 5,000 cases was on June 14 when it registered 4,949 daily infections.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Malaysia’s cumulative cases had now hit 701,019 since the pandemic began early last year.
Selangor again had the most number of cases with 1,346 new infections, of which 719 were traced to close contacts.
Another 199 cases in the state were linked to clusters while another 428 were sporadic.
Sarawak had the second highest number of cases with 682 new infections, followed by Perak with 453.
There were 69 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday, bringing the country’s death toll to 4,477.
About half of the deaths were in the Klang Valley, with Selangor recording 24 fatalities while Kuala Lumpur had 11.
The youngest casualty was a 28-year-old woman suffering from obesity, who died at Hospital Tuanku Jaafar in Seremban.
There were also five cases that were classified as “brought in dead”.
Currently, there are 880 patients in intensive care units, with 452 requiring ventilator support.
At the same time, 5,439 patients were discharged from treatment and monitoring, bringing the country’s total recoveries to 633,624, while active cases have gone down to 62,918.
The Health Ministry also detected 22 new Covid-19 clusters, of which 14 were outbreaks at the workplace.
Dr Noor Hisham said 69% of the country’s Covid-19 cases since Jan 1 this year were sporadic and unlinked to any cluster.
“From Jan 1 to June 19, Malaysia recorded 578,105 Covid-19 cases. From that total, 398,846 or 69% were sporadic cases,” he said in his daily update yesterday.
He added that Selangor recorded the most number of sporadic cases at 151,725, accounting for 38% of the country’s unlinked infections.
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