PUTRAJAYA: The Klang Valley recorded a more than two-fold increase in daily Covid-19 cases today at 567, compared to 224 yesterday.
Sabah logged 556 new infections today.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Selangor notched 364 new cases, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 202.
"Of the total cases recorded in the Klang Valley, 488, or 86.1 per cent, are related to clusters," he told a press conference today.
He added that 33 new cases were recorded as part of prison and temporary detention centre clusters, involving Seberang Perai Prison (20), Kepayan Prison (eight), Rumah Merah (three) and Tembok (two).
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the implementation of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) since Oct 14 in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya has helped to prevent a surge in Covid-19 cases in the Klang Valley.
He said that if the CMCO had not been implemented, the number of daily cases would be even higher.
Dr Noor Hisham said during the implementation of the CMCO, the country's R-naught (R0) stood at 2.2.
"The CMCO has managed to bring down the R0 to nearly 1, and today's projection of new cases was supposed to be 2,350.
"Imagine getting over 2,000 new cases every day for a week… our hospitals would be packed with patients.
"Although at first, many were against it, as at that time, Klang was a red-zone, the CMCO has helped prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham was responding to a question on whether the ongoing CMCO is sufficient to contain Covid-19 infections, as new cases in the Klang Valley have now surpassed Sabah.
He, however, expressed the ministry's concern with the movement of people in the Klang Valley, be it inter-zone, inter-district, or inter-state.
"Unlike in Sabah, where we can screen and identify people when they leave the state, it is difficult to do the same in densely-populated Klang Valley.
"Therefore, we hope that people can continue to adhere to the standard operating procedures to prevent further increase of new Covid-19 cases."