KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia continued to record below 3,000 new Covid-19 cases for third consecutive day when 2,897 fresh cases were registered today.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the latest figure pushed the total number of cases since the pandemic began to 2,746,833 cases.
Of today's new cases, 2,705 were local transmissions while 128 were imported cases.
"Category 1 and 2 patients make up 98.3 per cent (2,847) of today's new infections.
"The remaining 1.7 per cent or 50 cases, are Category 3, 4 and 5 cases," he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham also said there were 302 patients being treated in the intensive care units nationwide, of whom 244 confirmed Covid-positive and the other 58 cases categorised as suspected, probable and under investigation.
A total of 169 of them are on ventilator support, he said.
These comprise 94 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 75 classified as patients under investigation or suspected to have the virus.
Dr Noor Hisham said 35 people succumbed to the virus yesterday (Dec 27), six of whom were brought-in-dead cases.
Meanwhile, he said 3,434 recoveries were recorded today, raising the recovery tally from the coronavirus to 2,673,084.
There are 42,917 active Covid-19 cases in the country.
Dr Noor Hisham also said the ministry had detected four new clusters, bringing the number of active clusters to 226.
As of yesterday (Dec 27), the country's Covid-19 infectivity rate (Rt) stood at 0.93.
Terengganu reported the highest Rt value at 1.0 followed by Johor at 0.97, and Perak and Penang (0.94).
Kedah recorded Rt 0.93; Selangor and Kelantan (0.92); Negri Sembilan (0.91); Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Perlis (0.9); Pahang and Melaka (0.87); and Sabah (0.84).
"Infectivity rate in Labuan was 0.74 and Sarawak (0.73)," he added.