KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 — Malaysia’s declining daily Covid-19 cases saw a reversal today as the Health Ministry logged 20,837 in the past 24 hours.

Daily new cases hit record highs in five states, starting with Sabah at 3,376 cases, the first time it has exceeded 3,000 cases in a day.

The state’s previous record was ​​2,738 cases on August 20.

Penang crossed the 2,000-case mark for the first time with 2,075 cases, Johor registered 1,743 and Kelantan had 1,422.

Selangor remained the state with the most cases at 4,645.

Other states and Federal Territories with worrisome four-digit cases are Kedah (1,772), Sarawak (1,743), Kuala Lumpur (1,284) and Perak (1,242)

Pahang recorded 521 cases, along with 396 in Melaka, 383 in Terengganu, and 351 in Negri Sembilan.

The two states with the fewest cases were Putrajaya and Labuan, with 27 and four cases respectively.

To date, Malaysia has recorded 1,593,602 cumulative cases since the start of the pandemic last year.

Another 211 people have also died from Covid-19. Of them, 187 were Malaysians.

The highest number of deaths today occurred in Johor with 41 cases, followed by 36 in Selangor, and 32 in Kedah.

The death toll nationwide currently stands at 14,553 people.

However, 18,613 people recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours.

Currently, there are 1,063 patients warded in intensive care units (ICUs), with 511 of them needing breathing assistance.

Also, 34 new Covid-19 clusters were recorded in the past 24 hours, comprising 22 workplace related clusters, nine community clusters, two clusters involving Covid-19 high-risk groups and one cluster at a detention centre.

There are currently 1,446 active clusters.

The nationwide Covid-19 death rate is currently 0.91 per cent, while the recovery rate stands at 82.6 per cent.