KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded 5,501 new Covid-19 cases as of noon today, a drop from 6,144 cases logged on Thursday.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the fresh infections today bring the national tally to 2,614,480 since the pandemic struck last year.
"Of the new cases today, 5,476 (5,278 Malaysians and 198 foreigners) were local infections, while the remaining 25 cases were imported (13 Malaysians and 12 foreigners)," he said in a statement today.
He said out of the 5,501 cases reported, only 78 cases or 1.4 per cent were in Categories 3, 4, and 5.
The remaining 5,423 (98.6 per cent), he said, were asymptomatic or mild symptoms under Categories 1 and 2.
"To date, 519 patients were being treated at intensive care units, including 267 of them who are on ventilator support.
"A total of 6,664 patients have recovered, raising the cumulative number of recoveries to 2,516,693 as of today."
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the nation's infectivity rate, or R-naught (Rt), remained at 0.99 as of Nov 25.
He said nine states and territories have recorded an Rt of over 1.0 with Labuan registering the highest Rt of 1.19.
"This is followed by Kuala Lumpur (1.06), Melaka (1.06), Putrajaya (1.04), Selangor (1.04), Pahang (1.03), Kedah (1.03), Johor (1.02) and Perak (1.02).
"States with Rt below 1.0 are Sabah (0.99), Penang (0.99), Terengganu (0.99), Negri Sembilan (0.98), Kelantan (0.98), Perlis (0.93) and Sarawak (0.8)."
Dr Noor Hisham had earlier this month expressed concern with the country's Rt of over 1.0 which indicated the possibility of a new Covid-19 wave.
On new clusters, he said another seven clusters were identified today.
Currently, he said, there are 236 active clusters nationwide of the total 5,684 clusters recorded to date.
Dr Noor Hisham added that detailed information and breakdown of cases will be uploaded to the ministry's CovidNow portal (https://covidnow.moh.gov.my/), with the data being updated at midnight daily.