KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 — The Health Ministry reported 5,446 new Covid-19 cases in Malaysia today, tweeted Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

The number today is higher than yesterday’s 5,020.

He said that the new number brought the cumulative infections in the country to 2,678,465.

According to his daily health statement, out of the total number of new cases today, 5,426 involved local cases, with 5,056 (93.2 per cent) Malaysians and 370 (6.8 per cent) foreigners.

The remaining 20 cases were imported into the country.

"Of the total cases today, 419 patients are currently being treated in intensive care units (ICU), with 324 of them confirmed to be infected with Covid-19, while 95 cases are suspected cases, probabilities and cases under investigation.

"Of those, 232 of them need ventilators to help them breathe, with 147 of them confirmed positive, and 85 are suspected cases,” he said.

Some 98.4 per cent or 5,358 of the cases reported today were in Category 1 and 2, exhibiting little or no symptoms while the remaining 88 cases or 1.6 per cent were in Category 3, 4 and 5.

He also said that a total of 5,427 patients have recovered from the coronavirus infection, bringing the cumulative number of recovery cases to 2,586,822 or 96.6 per cent

Authorities also identified 17 new Covid-19 clusters today, which brings the number of current active clusters to 254.

He added that Malaysia’s rate of infection currently stands at 0.98, with Perlis being the state with the highest infectivity rate at 1.07, followed by Penang and Negri Sembilan with 1.02 and Pahang with 1.01 and Melaka with a 1.0 infectivity.