Covid-19 (Feb 16): Record 27,831 new daily cases

The Health Ministry reported 27,831 new daily Covid-19 cases today - a new record.

The previous record was set on Aug 26 last year during the height of the Covid-19 Delta variant wave.

However, unlike the Delta wave, the number of Covid-19 patients under intensive care remains relatively low.

According to Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, there are only two states (Kuala Lumpur and Johor) where the Covid-19 ICU utilisation rate was above 50 percent.

At present, 204 Covid-19 patients are in the intensive care unit, of which 116 are unable to breathe on their own and have been intubated.

This is an increase of 42.7 percent compared to the 143 Covid-19 patients in the intensive care unit a week ago.

Hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients continues to grow. There were 6,619 Covid-19 patients that were hospitalised as of yesterday, up 110 percent compared to one week ago.

Noor Hisham said that as of today, all 1,118 non-critical hospital beds allocated for Covid-19 patients in Selangor are occupied. The occupancy rate at Low-Risk Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRC) is also high at 79 percent.

Meanwhile, Perak has the second-highest Covid-19 bed utilisation rate at 87 percent, followed by Johor (86 percent), Putrajaya (86 percent), and Kelantan (84 percent). The figures do not include hospital beds allocated for non-Covid cases.

As of yesterday, the national infectivity rate (R-number) stood at 1.33. The value must be kept under 1.0 to prevent an exponential spread of the virus.

The states with an infectivity rate above the national average are Labuan (2.08), Sarawak (1.57), Sabah (1.52), Perlis (1.41), Penang (1.4), Kedah (1.4) and Terengganu (1.36).

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 (Feb 15), where 22,133 new cases were reported, is as follows:

Sabah (4,374)
Selangor (3,862)
Johor (2,780)
Kedah (2,649)
Penang (1,681)
Kelantan (1,598)
Kuala Lumpur (1,215)
Pahang (836)
Negeri Sembilan (684)
Perak (558)
Malacca (546)
Terengganu (453)
Labuan (311)
Sarawak (284)
Perlis (194)
Putrajaya (108)

To date, 467 Covid-19 clusters are still active, including 28 new clusters reported today.

The ongoing clusters have seen an increase of 21.3 percent from the 385 active clusters a week ago.