KUALA LUMPUR: The country is showing a downward trend in several areas related to the Covid-19 cases, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham said.
This includes the number of new cases, deaths, bed usage in hospitals, those placed in intensive care units (ICU) as well as Covid-19 patients who require breathing assistance.
Between Dec 26 last year and Jan 1, Dr Noor Hisham said the average active cases recorded showed a decrease of 15 per cent, adding that this downward trend had been observed over the past five weeks.
At the same time, he said Covid-19-related deaths had also declined by 18.2 per cent while the average number of cases requiring treatment in the ICU showed a decrease of 18 per cent
“The average number of cases requiring breathing assistance have also shown a decrease of 30.2 per cent.
“Bed usage in Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centre (PKRC) recorded a decrease of three per cent, non-ICU bed occupancy in hospitals drops by one per cent and at ICU reduces by six per cent,” he said in a statement today.
Earlier today, Dr Noor Hisham said Malaysia logged 2,690 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, a slight drop from yesterday’s 2,882. This brings the country’s cumulative cases to 2,767,044.
Based on CovidNow data, 19 new deaths were recorded for Covid-19, pushing fatality tally to 31,532 deaths. There were also four brought-in-dead cases recorded.
In the statement, Dr Noor Hisham said of the 2,690 new cases, 52 cases (1.9 per cent) involved categories three, four and five patients while 2,638 (98.1 per cent) consist of those in categories one and two.
He said 265 patients were being treated in ICUs nationwide while 147 of them were put on ventilators.
Despite the promising developments in certain areas, Dr Noor Hisham said there was a slight upward trend in the number of clusters involving workplaces.
Between Dec 26 last year and Jan 1, he said there were 18 workplace clusters reported.
The increase in workplace clusters, he said, indicated low standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance.
“This should not be the case as Malaysians should be aware of the importance of adhering to SOP in breaking the Covid-19 chain of infection.
“The Health Ministry would like to remind the public that SOP compliance is still very important, although 78.4 per cent of the total population are fully vaccinated.”