Covid-19 cases on downward trend for fifth consecutive day

PUTRAJAYA: Covid-19 infections in Malaysia continue to show improvement, with 1,208 new cases recorded on Monday (March 15) being the lowest daily figure of 2021 so far.

In the Health Ministry’s daily Covid-19 updates, statistics also showed that daily cases have been on a downward trend for the fifth consecutive day, starting from March 11 with 1,647 infections.

New recoveries continued to outnumber new cases in March, which means active Covid-19 cases have now gone down even lower to 15,511.

This is a marked improvement from a month ago when active cases were as high as 52,000 at one point.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Selangor still reported the most number of new cases with 379 infections, which constituted 31.4% of the country’s cases on Monday.

“Out of Selangor’s total, 333 of its cases or 87.9% were uncovered from infection clusters as well as contact tracing activities.

“The state is followed by Sarawak with 251 new cases (20.8%) and Penang with 142 cases (11.8%), ” said Dr Noor Hisham in the statement.

Nine of the country’s cases on Monday were imported infections, while the rest were local transmissions.

The Health Ministry also reported three more deaths to the coronavirus, taking the country’s fatalities total up to 1,213.

Dr Noor Hisham said the three death cases were recorded in Johor, Sarawak, involving two Malaysians, aged 55 and 64, and a foreigner aged 70 in Selangor.

The foreign man had a history of asthma and he succumbed to the virus at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.