KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia registered 3,160 new Covid-19 cases today, raising the national tally to 2,738,401 since the pandemic struck last year.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said of the fresh infections, 3,004 were local cases (2,877 Malaysians and 127 foreigners), while the remaining 156 cases were imported (150 Malaysians and six foreigners).
He further said out of the new cases reported, only 66 cases or 2.1 per cent were in Categories 3, 4, and 5.
The remaining 3,094 (97.9 per cent), he said were asymptomatic or mild symptoms under Categories 1 and 2.
"To date, 324 patients were being treated at the intensive care units, including 175 of them who are on ventilator support.
"A total of 4,421 patients have recovered, raising the cumulative number of recoveries to 2,661,495 as of today," he said in a statement today.
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the nation's R-naught (Rt) stood at 0.89 as of Dec 24.
He said Terengganu had the highest Rt at 1.00, followed by Johor and Penang at 0.95, Perak (0.94), Kuala Lumpur (0.91), Selangor and Kelantan (0.90), Kedah (0.89), Putrajaya (0.88), Labuan, Negri Sembilan and Perlis (0.87), Pahang (0.86), Melaka (0.84), Sabah (0.83) and Sarawak with 0.73.
Rt refers to the infectivity rate of a virus and the ability of a positive patient to transmit it to others.
On new clusters, Dr Noor Hisham said another three clusters were identified today.
Currently, he said there are 223 active clusters nationwide of the total 6,101 clusters recorded to date.
Dr Noor Hisham added that detailed information and breakdown of cases will be uploaded to the ministry's CovidNow portal at https://covidnow.moh.gov.my , with the data being updated at midnight daily.