More than 20,000 under home quarantine

PUTRAJAYA: More than 20,000 of the country’s Covid-19 patients are currently under home quarantine, says the Health Ministry.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said patients who are allowed to be isolated at home are those considered low-risk by a Covid-19 Assessment Centre (CAC).

“The CACs were established to conduct assessments of Covid-19 patients undergoing monitoring at home. Their services started on Jan 25.

“To date, there are 152 CACs operating nationwide and cumulatively, a total of 60,052 patients have been monitored by a CAC.

“Currently, CACs are monitoring 20,089 patients who are undergoing isolation at home, ” said Dr Noor Hisham during his daily briefing on the Covid-19 situation.

Currently, Johor has the highest number of patients under home quarantine (6,016), followed by Selangor (5,258) and Kuala Lumpur (4,489).

Sarawak is the only state that does not have any cases in home isolation, as its hospitals and quarantine centres have adequate capacity to handle Covid-19 patients.

The Health Ministry introduced home quarantines to address the issue of overcapacity at hospitals in the country.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Covid-19 figures rose again with 3,288 new cases yesterday.

Prior to that, the country’s daily cases had decreased from 3,847 on Feb 6 to 2,764 on Feb 9.

The main contributor to the surge was Selangor, which had 1,757 new cases, or 53.4% of the country’s total.

Only a day before, Selangor saw a dip in cases when it recorded 862 infections.

Five of the country’s 3,288 new cases were imported infections.

Also, 63 new positive cases were detected from clusters related to lockups, detention centres and prisons.

The ministry also uncovered 11 new Covid-19 clusters, taking the total of active ones to 466.

Seven of the new clusters were discovered from infections at workplaces in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Sabah and Johor.

Dr Noor Hisham also announced 14 more Covid-19 deaths, which means 923 people have succumbed to the deadly virus in the country.

“Today’s deaths involved five cases in Selangor, four in Sabah, two in Johor and one each in Kedah, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.

“All of the victims were Malaysians, ” he added.

Dr Noor Hisham said those who died ranged from 36 to 94 years old and most of them suffered comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure or obesity.

There are currently 52,186 active Covid-19 cases that are being treated at the country’s hospitals and quarantine centres.

Of those, 285 are in intensive care units, with 131 on ventilator support.