KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — The Health Ministry recorded 26,534 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, registering an increase by 4,504 cases compared to the day before.
In a statement this morning, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that 31,234 people had recovered from the virus yesterday, bringing active cases in the country to 304,147.
Dr Noor Hisham said 95 Covid-19 deaths were reported yesterday, including 23 that were classified as brought-in-dead (BID).
The death toll since the start of the pandemic currently stands at 33,994.
Of the new cases, 25,843 were identified as locally transmitted cases, while 691 were imported cases.
He said 99.34 per cent of the cases were in Categories 1 and 2, where patients were either asymptomatic or did not have serious symptoms.
The remaining 0.66 per cent were in Categories 3, 4 and 5 — denoting they had developed lung infections or worse.
There are 376 people in Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, with 222 of them needing ventilator assistance.
The country’s Covid-19 recovery rate is at 91.3 per cent, while the national infectivity rate or Rt stands at 0.95.
Seven states and Federal Territories are currently using more than 50 per cent of their ICU beds.
These are: Kuala Lumpur (81 per cent) Putrajaya (67 per cent), Johor (64 per cent), Selangor (60 per cent), Kelantan (58 per cent), Perlis (55 per cent) and Melaka (50 per cent).
