KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — Only 214 of the 28,298 new COVID-19 cases reported in the country yesterday were in categories three to five, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said the remaining 28,084 cases were in categories one and two for asymptomatic and mild cases, bringing the cumulative figure for positive COVID-19 cases to 3,900,433.
“Meanwhile, 33,009 recoveries were reported yesterday, raising the cumulative number of recovered cases to 3,567,003,” he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham said of the 214 cases in categories three to five, 56 cases involved unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated individuals while 101 cases had received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine but not the booster shot.
“A total of 57 cases have received the booster jab, 119 cases are aged 60 and above, and 82 cases have comorbidities,” he added.
He said 1,743 COVID-19 cases were admitted to hospital yesterday, with 743 cases in categories three to five and 1,000 cases in categories one and two.
He said 374 cases required treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 233 cases required ventilators.
On bed usage for critical or ICU cases, Dr Noor Hisham said among states which exceeded 50 per cent occupancy are Kelantan (76 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (70 per cent), Johor (69 per cent), Putrajaya (65 per cent), Perak (64 per cent), Selangor (62 per cent) and Sarawak (61 per cent).
He said the infectivity rate (Rt) in the country is 0.96, with Sarawak registering the highest value at 1.15.
Other states with Rt exceeding 1.0 are Kuala Lumpur (1.13), Terengganu (1.07), Negeri Sembilan (1.06), Perak, Putrajaya and Johor (1.03 each), and Penang, Selangor and Melaka (1.02 each).
