KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded 18,815 new Covid-19 positive cases as of noon today, raising the national tally to 2,049,750 since the pandemic struck the country last year.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah posted the latest statistics on his official Twitter account today.
He said 18,808 were local transmissions with 16,819 involving Malaysians while the rest were foreigners.
There are seven imported cases involving four Malaysians and three foreigners.
"Of the overall cases, 18,593 are patients in Categories 1 and 2 while 222 are in Categories 3, 4 and 5." he said in a statement.
Dr Noor Hisham said Sarawak has the highest number of cases at 3,660 followed by Selangor (2,718) and Johor (2,206).
Sabah recorded 1,982 cases, followed by Penang (1,777), Perak (1,446), Kedah (1,233), Kelantan (1,222), Terengganu (814), Pahang (712), Kuala Lumpur (493), Melaka (269) and Negri Sembilan (170).
Perlis, Putrajaya and Labuan recorded 80, 22 and 11 cases, respectively.
Dr Noor Hisham said 1,222 patients were warded in intensive care units where 913 were confirmed cases while 309 are suspected, probable and under investigation.
There are 710 patients who require breathing assistance.
The ministry also recorded 21 new Covid-19 clusters with a total of 603 cases where nine are workplace infections, six involved the community, three related to education centres, two of high risk groups and one at a detention centre.
Among the cases involved a 10-year-old girl from Kota Baru who sparked the Kampung Belukar Simpang community cluster and saw 14 people infected with the virus so far.
Dr Noor Hisham said the girl was tested positive on Sept 12 after showing symptoms from Sept 9.
He said four more new infections were found today and the spread of the virus was detected in the village where 14 people had been screened so far.
Meanwhile, the nation's infectivity rate or R-naught (Rt) stood at 0.97, said Dr Noor Hisham, with Sarawak recording the highest at 1.14