KUALA LUMPUR: After three straight days of being in the 5,000-case range, Covid-19 cases in the country saw an increase today to 6,210 new infections.
This was a rise of almost 700 cases from the 5,516 infections logged yesterday.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the figure brought the national tally to 2,413,592.
"Out of the total cases today, 116 cases are in Category 3; 4 and 5 while 6,094 cases are in Category 1 and 2.
"There are 42 import cases involving 19 Malaysians and 23 foreigners.
"Of the 6,168 local transmission cases, 5,860 cases are Malaysians and 308 foreigners," he said in a statement.
As of today, 677 patients are being treated at the intensive care units with 501 Covid-19 patients and 176 suspected to be infected with the coronavirus.
Dr Noor Hisham said there were 319 patients under ventilation support with 205 of them diagnosed with Covid-19.
On recoveries, Malaysia recorded 7,562 today, bringing the cumulative total to 2,303,583.
The Health Ministry also detected six new clusters across the country today, involving three community clusters, two workplace clusters and one cluster involving high-risk groups.
Dr Noor Hisham said there were 591 active clusters in the country.
"The three community clusters are Parit Tiga Belas in Sabak Bernam, Selangor; Kampung Batu 66 in Beaufort, Sabah Beaufort and Taman UA in Jelebu, Negri Sembilan, each cluster recorded 15, 29 and 30 cases respectively.
"The workplace clusters are Jalan Hutton in Seremban and Industri Jalan Dengkil-Banting in Sepang and Kuala Langat. Both reported 11 and 50 Covid-19 cases respectively as of today.
"The only high-risk group cluster is the Kampung Bawan cluster in Beaufort, where 34 cases have been recorded."
Dr Noor Hisham said the nation's Covid-19 infectivity rate (Rt) value stood at 0.86 as of Oct 20.
Both Negri Sembilan and Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest Rt value at 1.0 followed by Putrajaya (0.99); Selangor (0.95); Melaka (0.93); Perlis (0.92) Kelantan and Sabah (0.89); Johor (0.87); Terengganu (0.86); Kedah, Perak and Penang (0.84), Pahang (0.81), Sarawak (0.79).
Labuan recorded an Rt value of zero.
Dr Noor Hisham said more information on Covid-19 will be uploaded to the CovidNow website at https://covidnow.moh.gov.my, after midnight.