KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 — Malaysia’s new Covid-19 cases rose to 20,988 today, up from yesterday’s 18,762.

This brings the country’s total number of positive cases to 1,786,004 since the start of the pandemic.

Selangor topped the list with 4,073 cases followed by Sarawak (2,992 cases), Kedah (2,455 cases), Sabah (2,329 cases), Johor (2,145 cases), Penang (1,600 cases), Kelantan (1,247 cases), Perak (990 cases), Terengganu (987 cases), Kuala Lumpur (731 cases), Pahang (599 cases), Melaka (407 cases), Negri Sembilan (301 cases), Perlis (90 cases), Putrajaya (37 cases) and Labuan (five cases).

"There were also another 249 deaths today, 80 of which were categorised as brought in dead (BID). Of the total, 46 were Malaysians,” Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement today.

In Selangor, there were 61 deaths, of which 33 were BID followed by Johor who had 40 deaths (12 BID), Penang 39 (14 BID), Sabah 33 (12 BID), Kuala Lumpur 16 (two BID), Perak nine (four BID), Sarawak eight (two BID) and Terengganu three deaths with one BID.

Other states with fatalities were Kedah (16 deaths), Melaka (13 deaths), Kelantan (six deaths), Negri Sembilan (four deaths) and Perlis with one death. The total number of deaths is 17,191 to date.

"In addition, there have been another 31 new Covid-19 clusters with Kelantan and Johor topping the list with six new clusters each.

"These were 17 new workplace clusters that contributed to 793 new cases today. The other clusters were from the community (nine clusters), four from the high-risk groups and one was an education cluster,” said Dr Noor Hisham.