KUALA LUMPUR: Hospital ward occupancy rate of Covid-19 cases in 12 states and intensive care units (ICU) in seven have breached between 50 per cent as of yesterday.
Worse still, hospitals in Selangor have exceeded their capacity at 107 per cent usage, followed by Kelantan (97 per cent), Putrajaya (93 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (90 per cent) and Perak (89 per cent).
Meanwhile, hospitals in Perlis, Pahang, Sabah, Terengganu, Sarawak, and Penang had exceeded 50 per cent of their admission capacity.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement said the influx of non-ICU Covid-19 cases had caused hospitals to record higher occupancy especially in Selangor, Kelantan, Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur and Perak.
He said Selangor had exceeded capacity at 107 percent usage, followed by Kelantan (97), Putrajaya (93), Kuala Lumpur (90), Perak (89) and rest Perlis, Pahang Sabah, Terengganu, Sarawak, and Penang were above 50 per cent of the admission capacity.
"Although the healthcare system is strained, rest assured that our hospitals and medical staff are all well prepared.
"Rest assured, all these states have been told what to do if there is a sudden spike in cases and if the hospital, PKRC (quarantine and low-risk treatment centres) or ICU are full. We are prepared for any eventuality," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham added that there were also high-risk Covid-19 cases from categories 1 and 2 requiring admission to PKRC and hospitals as a precaution.
"For instance, when a diagnosedpatient is assessed as Cat 2 and allowed (to go under) HSO (home surveillance order). But while under HSO the condition could worsen to Cat 3, and may require admission.
"So, there is a possibility that Cat 1 and 2 could also require close monitoring at medical facility.
"Yesterday, 1,677 hospital admissions were recorded nationwide, of which only 589 cases were patients from Cat 3,4 and 5. The rest 1,088 were patients from Cat 1 and 2."
Meanwhile, on the admission rate for ICU, Dr Noor Hisham said Kelantan was almost full at 92 per cent, followed by Johor (61 per cent), Perlis (55 per cent), Perak (53 per cent) and Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Melaka (are three at 50 per cent).
Dr Noor Hisham said there were five new Covid-19 clusters detected yesterday.
On the infectivity rate, he said the nationwide Rt yesterday stood at Rt 1.11; Perak recorded the highest at Rt 1.38 followed by Labuan (Rt 1.36) and Terengganu (Rt 1.27).
Meanwhile, he said the new daily Covid-19 cases in the country took a slight dip at 30,644 new cases reported yesterday, compared to Thursday's 32,070.
The Health Ministry's CovidNow data portal showed that of the new cases, 30,387 were local transmissions while the rest 257 cases were imported.
This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country to 3,367,871.
There are 294,,430 active Covid-19 cases in the country with a majority or 95.8 per cent in isolation and recovering under home quarantine.
Another 2.7 per cent or 7,949 cases are warded in hospitals, 4,076 or 1.4 per cent at PKRC and 332admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.
Of the 332 cases in the ICU, 196 or 0.1 percent are on ventilators.
So far 57 deaths were reported yesterday, of which 14 were brought-in-dead cases.
At the same time, 22,678 recoveries were recorded, bringing the total to 3,040,850 since the pandemic hit the country.