KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 — Daily Covid-19 cases surged close to a thousand more than yesterday, with the Ministry of Health recording 6,288 new transmissions as of noon today in a continuation of an uptrend that has spanned eleven days.
Total positive cases have now reached 2.563 million since the first reported case.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday warned of another potential surge in Covid-19 infections in the coming weeks as the country sees an uptrend in new cases fuelled by a higher infectivity rate.
The infectivity rate, measured as R0 or Rt, has been rising daily since November 6. Dr Noor Hisham called for caution that the higher Rt has pushed new cases to climb by 11 per cent from the previous week.
From the total daily cases, around a sixth of them were severe.
Dr Noor Hisham said 536 patients were in intensive care units with 440 confirmed Covid-19 cases. The rest of the cases have yet to be determined.
About half of the patients admitted into ICU needed breathing support, with 175 of them confirmed to have Covid-19.
Despite the high number of ICU admissions linked to the coronavirus, the Ministry of Health said only 2 per cent or 125 of the patients were deemed to be category 3,4, and 5.
The rest either had no or mild symptoms.
Meanwhile eight new clusters had been identified, pushing the total number of clusters found to date to 5,858. From the total, 247 remain active while 5,611 are no longer active.
Selangor and Kuala Lumpur both have an infectivity rate (Rt) of 1.05, indicating a rise in community transmission.
The country’s infectivity rate is currently 1.05, up from 0.92 on November 6.
The infectivity rate measures how many people an infected person will transmit the virus to on average. A number above 1.0 suggests cases will increase.
