KUALA LUMPUR: After three days straight logging new cases in the 8,000 range, today's fresh cases have crossed the 9,000 threshold with 9,380 infections recorded.
Malaysia recorded 8,817 new cases on Tuesday.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said of these new infections, 13 were imported cases involving eight locals and five foreigners.
"Today's new cases involve 9,199 or 98.1 percent of Category 1 and 2 patients. The rest or 181 cases (1.9 per cent) are those the Category 3, 4 and 5," he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham said Sarawak remained the state with the highest cases at 1,503 followed by Kelantan (1,170) and Selangor (1,116).
Johor reported 1,105 new cases, Sabah (790), Terengganu (704), Perak (629), Penang (623), Kedah (556), Pahang (511), Melaka (200), KL (214), Negri Sembilan (191), Perlis (42), Putrajaya (18) and Labuan (eight).
The latest coronavirus infections brought the national tally to 2,303,837 cases since the pandemic struck the country in March last year.
Dr Noor Hisham said Malaysia also recorded 13,045 new Covid-19 recoveries as of 12pm today.
The Health Ministry also detected 11 new clusters with five being work-related clusters, five community clusters and one high risk cluster.
The clusters were detected in Johor (three), Selangor (one), Perak (two), Kelantan (six) and Negri Sembilan (one).
"Among the new clusters are the Industri Batu Empat Kempas, the Seri Paya, the Industri Dua Batu 29 Jalan Ipoh, Kampung Biah, Langkap 2, Tapak Bina Jalan Pendas, Gual Tinggi and Dataran Air Muleh clusters," he said, adding that there were 932 active clusters.
On the infectivity rate or R-naught (Rt), Dr Noor Hisham said the national average stood at 0.87.
"Perlis reported the highest Rt at 1.03 and Melaka at 1.00. The two are the only states which recorded an Rt of above one, while Labuan is the only territory to record a zero Rt."
On the capacity and usage of hospital beds for Covid-19 cases, Dr Noor Hisham said 51 percent of hospital beds in the country were occupied.
"Fifty-six percent of Intensive care unit (ICU) beds are also in use for those who require critical medical care treatments, nationwide.
"Some 851 people are currently being treated at Intensive Unit Care (ICU) wards nationwide, with Penang having the highest ICU utilisation rate of more than 90 per cent usage," he said.
Of the total number of Covid-19 patients in the ICU, 447 of them were on ventilators.