Covid-19 (Oct 17): New cases down, but hospitalisations climbing

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported 1,210 new Covid-19 cases yesterday.

The number of reported new cases has not been this low since Sept 26.

However, hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients - a crucial indicator for healthcare policymakers - has been creeping up.

Active infections stood at 23,070, up 0.5 percent compared to 14 days ago.

New cases according to states are as follows:

Selangor (422)
Negeri Sembilan (114)
Kuala Lumpur (109)
Sabah (108)
Perak (90)
Penang (81)
Kedah (59)
Johor (48)
Kelantan (45)
Sarawak (37)
Putrajaya (32)
Terengganu (26)
Malacca (21)
Pahang (17)
Perlis (1)

Another six deaths attributed to Covid-19 were reported yesterday, of which five were declared "brought in dead".

These deaths were reported in Selangor (3), Johor (1), Perak (1) and Kuala Lumpur (1).

Over the past week, an average of 2.9 people were reported to have died of the disease, while the average for the past 30 days was 3.8, indicating that Covid-19 deaths are on the downtrend.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, a total of 36,423 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus.

There have been 49 reported deaths this month. For comparison, there were 158 last month and 247 in August.

There are 1,025 Covid-19 patients who are hospitalised of which 43 are in intensive care.

The number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients has been climbing since the recent low of 905 on Oct 12.

The highest number of admissions yesterday was recorded in Selangor (77) followed by Sabah (71) and Johor (34).