KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 — Malaysia added another 3,048 more Covid-19 infections on the eve of the original expiry of the renewed movement control order, prompting Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah to say the country’s situation could stabilise soon.

The Health director-general said the basic reproduction number (R0) of Covid-19 infections was already showing signs of decline, adding that it should soon be as low as 1.06.

Today’s new cases were the lowest across the last 10 days in which the country also saw its highest ever new daily cases.

He said restricting new daily cases to 3,000 and under would help stabilise the situation.

"Even the R0 has been going down, from 1.2 last week to 1.06 today. Hopefully tomorrow it can be reduced further to below 1.0,” he said during a media briefing session held over Zoom this evening. 

Later in his daily Covid-19 statement, Dr Noor Hisham said there were 41,076 active cases out of the cumulative total of 186,849 Covid-19 cases.

The country also saw 11 more Covid-19 related deaths, three in Sabah, two each in Selangor and Sarawak, and one each in Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, and Kuala Lumpur. 

He said 261 patients were in intensive care units (ICU) nationwide, with 101 needing ventilators.

Dr Noor Hisham said another 3,638 Covid-19 patients have recovered and were discharged over the last 24 hours, bringing the number of cured patients to 145,084 or 77.6 per cent of the nationwide tally.

The ministry also reported 13 new infection clusters nationwide today, eight of which were detected in workplaces, three clusters from community infections, and two involving screened high-risks groups. 

These include the Sri Muda cluster, the Sungai Chemubong cluster, and Jalan Waja cluster in Selangor, the Jalan Indah and Jalan Firma Tiga clusters in Johor, the Industri Apas cluster in Sabah, the Jalan Kerinchi cluster in Kuala Lumpur and the Kampung Tualang cluster in Terrengganu. 

Clusters detected from the community were the Kampung Muhibbah cluster in Johor, and the Taman Bahagia and Kampung Bukit Lada clusters in Pahang. 

The cluster of high risk groups are the Bukit Palah cluster that was detected among health officials in Hospital Melaka, Jasin, Melaka, and Kampung Pahi cluster in Kuala Krai, Kelantan, that was detected among maintenance workers from a company assigned to the Hospital Sultan Ismail Petra.