KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 — The Cheras district in Kuala Lumpur is now a red zone or a Covid-19 hotspot, where more than 41 cases have been recorded, the latest data released today by the Health Ministry showed.

Cheras was an orange zone or one category below with 38 Covid-19 cases on April 4, but the latest figures show that it has now crossed over to be a red zone with a total cumulative tally of 44 cases as of April 5.

With Cheras now categorised as a red zone, all four districts in Kuala Lumpur are now marked as red zones.

With the addition of Cheras, the total number of Covid-19 red zones in Malaysia has also gone up to 18.

Top red zone is in KL

As of April 5 noon, the Lembah Pantai district is the nation's top red zone for the third day running as it has the highest cumulative tally of Covid-19 cases at 376.

Lembah Pantai's total tally of Covid-19 cases was also the highest in Malaysia on April 3 at 322, and on April 4 at 367 cases.

In the latest data as of April 5, the number of Covid-19 cases in the 18 red zones or the 18 districts with at least 41 cases each are: Lembah Pantai (376), Hulu Langat (318), Petaling (292), Kuching (165), Seremban (156), Kluang (147), Johor Bahru (139), Kepong (112), Klang (109), Gombak (100), Titiwangsa (90), Kinta (84), Kota Bahru (82), Tawau (67), Hilir Perak (65), Jerantut (60), Batu Pahat (47) and Cheras (44).

These 18 red zones alone account for a total of 2,453 Covid-19 cases.

In other words, about 67 per cent of the 3,662 Covid-19 cases detected in Malaysia as of April 5 have been recorded in just these 18 red zones.

No new orange zones

There are now a total of 22 orange zones nationwide as of April 5, down from 23 orange zones the day before as Cheras is now a red zone.

According to the definition in the Health Ministry's maps, an orange zone is a district where 20 to 40 Covid-19 cases have been recorded so far.

As of April 5 noon, the number of cases in Malaysia's 22 districts that are Covid-19 orange zones are: Rembau (40), Sepang (39), Lahad Datu (38), Jasin (38), Putrajaya (37), Seberang Perai Tengah (37), Kuantan (36), Kota Samarahan (36), Kota Kinabalu (34), Kuala Muda (33), Kuala Selangor (29), Muar (29), Melaka Tengah (28), Timur Laut (27), Dungun (27), Besut (26), Hulu Selangor (25), Kulai (24), Kota Setar (23), Alor Gajah (23), Pekan (22) and Kuala Langat (21).

Why being an orange or red zone matters

The significance of being an orange zone is that it sometimes only takes several cases for a district to tip over and be recategorised as a red zone, with red zones being districts that have 41 cases and above.

Although being designated as a red zone does not necessarily mean that the entire district would have more restrictions of movement by the government to curb the spread of Covid-19, selected villages or even buildings — with a very high concentration of Covid-19 cases detected — in red zones can be put under tighter control to enable the government to carry out door-to-door Covid-19 detection activities.

So far the government has issued three enhanced movement control of orders (EMCO) on two villages in Simpang Renggam in the red zone of Kluang in Johor, seven villages in the red zone of Hulu Langat, and a condominium in Kuala Lumpur.

The final 30

In the Health Ministry's maps, a green zone is a district where no Covid-19 cases have been recorded.

There are now only 30 districts in Malaysia that have not recorded any Covid-19 cases as of April 5, down from the tally of 31 districts that remained unchanged from April 1 to April 4.

This is due to Sarawak's Matu district — which was initially a green zone — being recorded as having one Covid-19 case as of April 5.

The 30 green zones are spread out over six states: including one district each in four states in peninsular Malaysia, nine districts in Sabah and 17 districts in Sarawak.

Originally, however, in the first batch of data released by the Health Ministry, Malaysia had a total of 39 districts in seven states on March 25 that had zero Covid-19 cases.

As of April 5, the total of confirmed Covid-19 cases recorded in Malaysia so far stands at 3,662 cases, including 1,005 patients that have recovered and 61 deaths.