KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — Malaysia continued its upwards trajectory of daily Covid-19 infections for the second straight day this week with 3,543 cases today.

The latest figure marked a slight uptick over the past 24 hours compared to 3,270 cases yesterday.

In a Twitter post, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the country’s cumulative Covid-19 cases now number 2,776,699 since the pandemic began two years ago.

In his daily statement, Dr Noor Hisham revealed that there were 253 individuals requiring intensive care treatment, of which 203 were confirmed Covid-19 cases and the remaining 50 under investigation.

"Of the 253, a total of 130 require breathing assistance,” he said.

The number of recoveries however did not surpass today’s figure, with 3,484 people fully recovered.

On the overall cases reported, Dr Noor Hisham said 53 or 1.5 per cent were in Categories 3, 4 and 5.

Today’s infection involved 3,047 Malaysians with 132 cases detected among non-locals, and 364 more imported cases.

Apart from that, another seven new clusters were registered today for a combined total of 190 active clusters to date.

Dr Noor Hisham also said the nationwide Covid-19 infectivity rate — denoted as R-naught, R0 or Rt — was at 0.97, with Sabah the highest at 1.03, followed by Perlis at 1.01, Negri Sembilan and Kelantan at 0.99 and Kedah at 0.98.

Melaka, Penang and Labuan tied with the nationwide average while Johor and Putrajaya saw an R0 value of 0.96 respectively followed by Perak and Pahang at 0.95, Selangor at 0.94, Terengganu and Kuala Lumpur at 0.93.

Sarawak recorded the lowest R0 value at 0.86.