PETALING JAYA: The number of daily Covid-19 infections continued their recent uptick to register 1,482 new cases, with Selangor retaining the “top spot”.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the new infections over the past 24 hours brought the cumulative total to 345,500 cases.
He added that Selangor recorded the highest number with 661 cases, followed by Penang with 200 cases and Sarawak with 176 cases.
“Most of the cases or 565 cases in Selangor were detected from clusters and close contact screening, ” he said in a statement yesterday.
There were seven deaths, bringing the total cumulative fatalities to 1,272.
“Four fatalities were in Selangor and one each in Johor, Sarawak and Sabah, ” said Dr Noor Hisham, adding that five of them were locals.
There were 13 new clusters detected with seven of them linked to workplaces.
Five were community clusters while another involved a high-risk cluster.
Among them were the Jalan Rasmi and Hevea Scruvinana clusters in Selangor and the Jalan Kingsway and Bulatan Aman clusters in Sarawak, all categorised as workplace clusters.
On a separate matter, Dr Noor Hisham thanked all parties and the public for following the standard operating procedure even after they had received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
“This is in line with the World Health Organisation stand that the vaccine cannot be treated as an ‘immunity passport’ as it is still at its initial stages.
“We will continue to monitor and look into the latest developments involving vaccine studies and the respective immunisation programmes across the world, ” he added.
Dr Noor Hisham also said there was the emergence of the latest variants of Covid-19 and this might affect the effectiveness of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
