KUALA LUMPUR: The number of new Covid-19 cases in the country rose by 41.7 per cent, or 1,913 cases, during the fifth epidemiological week of the year (ME/2023) compared to 1,350 cases the week before.
Health Ministry (MoH) director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said this was for the period from Jan 29 to last Saturday.
However, he said a few other Covid-19 indicators showed a downward trend with no changes throughout the week.
"The number of recovery cases went down 41.7 per cent (2,177 cases to 1,270 cases), while the number of death cases also decreased by 62.5 per cent from eight to three cases," he said in a statement yesterday.
Dr Noor Hisham said the decline of 33.3 per cent could also be seen in the admission of patients in hospital involving those in category one and two.
"For category four and five patients, it remained the same with no changes at 0.5 per cent. The percentage of non-critical beds and in the intensive care unit (ICU) remained unchanged at eight and four per cent respectively.
"Covid-19 patients that need assistance breathing has dropped by 0.1 per cent," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said positive cases monitored by the Covid-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) across the country showed an increase with the number of patients coming in increasing by as much as 27.1 per cent.
"The number of Covid-19 cases undergoing home quarantine has increased by 8.5 per cent, while the cases referred by the CAC to hospital has gone down by 58.3 per cent," he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said that as a result of Covid-19 surveillance at sentinel locations all across the country, 15 samples among patients with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) were detected to be positive, with the positive rate at 1.9 per cent.
"Apart from this, there were no Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) samples that were positive for Covid-19 during ME5/2023," he said.