Covid-19 (Dec 4): 4,896 cases, R-naught at 0.97

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported 4,896 new Covid-19 cases today, bringing the cumulative infections to 2,654,474.

The fresh infections were more than the number of Covid-19 patients who recovered, which totalled 4676. This is expected to contribute to a rise in the number of active cases.

• Patients in ICU: 490
• Intubated: 269

The R-naught, or infectivity rate, has been creeping up and is at 0.97 as of Dec 3.

The value must be kept under 1.0 to prevent exponential growth in new infections.

Nationally, the number of hospital admissions in the last seven days has declined by 9.3 percent compared to the preceding week.

However, the seven-day average of hospital admissions in Pahang saw a rise of 10.7 percent during the same period.

The Health Ministry will only publish today's breakdown of new cases by states after midnight on its CovidNow portal.

The breakdown by states for yesterday (Dec 3), when 5,551 new cases were reported, is as follow:

Selangor (1,719)
Kelantan (559)
Johor (421)
Kedah (388)
Sabah (374)
Kuala Lumpur (362)
Pahang (319)
Penang (291)
Perak (248)
Terengganu (229)
Malacca (226)
Negeri Sembilan (219)
Sarawak (106)
Perlis (49)
Putrajaya (35)
Labuan (6)

Clusters

To date, 227 Covid-19 clusters are still active, including four new clusters reported today.

The ongoing clusters have fallen by 3.0 percent from the 234 active clusters a week ago.