The Malaysian Insight

MALAYSIA witnessed its deadliest Covid-19 day today as 153 people succumbed to the virus, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

According to Noor Hisham, the latest figures take the cumulative death toll to 7,019, while the active caseload of 124,593 is also the highest to date.

The previous records for both Covid-19 fatalities and active cases were set yesterday, when 138 people died and 119,814 active cases were reported.

More than half of today’s deaths were in Selangor, which reported 82 fatalities, followed by Kuala Lumpur (17), Negri Sembilan (14), Johor (10), Kedah (eight), Pahang (five) and Malacca (five).

Sabah, Penang and Putrajaya reported two deaths each, while Terengganu, Sarawak, Kelantan, Perak, and Labuan reported one death each.

Meanwhile, 909 patients are in intensive care, 445 of which require respiratory support.

Malaysia has reported 10,710 new cases in the past 24 hours, of which 12 were imported.

Noor Hisham also said that of the 123,386 test samples taken on July 18, 8.68% came back positive.

He said 59% or 6,317 of today’s cases were in the asymptomatic Category 1 while 4,162 cases or 38.9% belonged to Category 2 with mild symptoms.

There were 91 cases or 0.8% in Category 3 with pneumonia, 45 or 0.4% in Category 4, which requires oxygen and 95 or 0.9% in critical condition and requiring a ventilator, in Category 5.

“This has clearly increased the burden on the ministry and reduced the capacity of public hospitals,” he said.

Noor Hisham said the long time taken to treat cases had led to a capacity constraint and congestion in hospitals, with limited bed space in turn putting stress on the healthcare system as a whole.

The new cases have raised the cumulative caseload to 916,561.

Only 5,778 recoveries were reported today, taking the cumulative total number of recoveries to 784,949. – July 18, 2021.