KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 — Only 0.73 per cent or 199 of the 27,004 new COVID-19 cases reported in the country yesterday were in categories three to five, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said the remaining 26,805 cases were in categories one and two, bringing the cumulative figure for positive COVID-19 cases to 3,927,437.
Meanwhile, he said 29,450 recoveries were reported yesterday, taking the cumulative number of recovered cases to 3,596,453.
“Of the 199 cases in categories three to five, 51 cases involved unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated individuals while 82 cases had received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine but not the booster shot.
“A total of 66 cases have received the booster jab, 95 cases are aged 60 and above, and 105 cases have comorbidities,” he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham said 1,669 COVID-19 cases were admitted to hospital yesterday, with 674 cases or 40.4 per cent in categories three to five and 995 cases or 59.6 per cent in categories one and two.
He said 373 cases required treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 225 cases required ventilators, taking the utilisation rate to 25 per cent.
On bed usage for critical or ICU cases, Dr Noor Hisham said eight states have over 50 per cent occupancy namely Perlis (73 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (70 per cent), Putrajaya (67 per cent), Kelantan (63 per cent), Johor (60 per cent), Selangor (56 per cent), Sarawak (52 per cent) and Perak (51 per cent).
He said the infectivity rate (Rt) in the country is 0.95 , with Sarawak registering the highest value at 1.13.
Other states with Rt exceeding 1.0 are Kuala Lumpur (1.10), Terengganu and Negeri Sembilan (1.04), Putrajaya (1.03), Perak and Johor (1.02), while Penang, Selangor and Melaka (1.01 each).
