KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 ― Malaysia continues to see soaring Covid-19 infection numbers with 9,117 new cases recorded today, a steep hike from yesterday’s 7,324 cases.

The last time new cases breached the 9,000-case mark was on October 8, 2021 with 9,751 cases.

This brings the cumulative infection cases to 2,904,131 cases, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announced.

Two days ago, the Health Ministry said that the severity of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia is currently its prime concern following the emergence of the Omicron variant rather than the number of daily infections.

Of the number of cases today, 8,983 people are Malaysians with the rest being foreigners. 10 new Covid-19 clusters were also recorded today.

"Of the 9,117 daily cases reported today; 47 cases (0.5 per cent) were categories 3, 4, and 5 and another 9,070 cases (99.5 per cent) are from categories 1 and 2,” Dr Noor Hisham said.

He said that 6,546 patients recovered today, with 123 patients in need of treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU), and 67 others in need of ventilators.

On the effective reproduction number (Rt) of Covid-19 infections, Perlis again topped the list with the highest reading at 1.33, followed by Sabah at 1.29 and Kedah at 1.19.

Johor and Putrajaya recorded 1.17 respectively, followed by Selangor (1.16), Penang (1.13), Melaka (1.12) and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (1.09). The Federal Territory of Labuan recorded zero reading.