Covid-19 (Jan 2): 2,882 cases, R-number reaches 0.99

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported 2,882 new Covid-19 cases today.

The fresh infections today comprised 2,791 Malaysians (96.8 percent) and 91 non-citizens (3.2 percent).

They were surpassed by a total of 3,291 Covid-19 patients who recovered today. This is expected to help reduce the number of active cases.

Patients in ICU: 284
Intubated: 156

As of today, the number of Covid-19 patients (including suspected ones) in the intensive care unit (ICU) is 7.2 percent lower compared to a week ago.

Those who require intubation have also declined by 8.2 percent from a week ago.

The R-number, or infectivity rate, has reached 0.99. As long as the R-number is below 1.00, it would suggest that the spread of Covid-19 was decelerating.

The last time the R-number was this high was on Dec 12 last year.

There are no states with an R-number of more than 1.00. The lowest was in Sarawak (0.76).

The number of admission of Covid-19 patients over the last seven days (897 a day) has remained almost the same as the preceding week.

The only state which has a significant increase in admissions is Johor (+13.1 percent).

A breakdown of new Covid-19 cases according to state will only be released after midnight. These are yesterday's (Jan 1, 3,386 new cases) figures:

Selangor (786)
Johor (426)
Kelantan (350)
Pahang (268)
Sabah (264)
Kedah (254)
Penang (206)
Kuala Lumpur (191)
Malacca (182)
Perak (164)
Terengganu (130)
Negeri Sembilan (97)
Sarawak (24)
Perlis (22)
Putrajaya (20)
Labuan (2)

To date, 209 Covid-19 clusters are still active, including one new cluster reported today.

The ongoing clusters have fallen by 4.1 percent from the 218 active clusters a week ago.