Covid-19: Malaysia's cases go past 500,000 mark

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has reached an unwanted milestone when the country’s cumulative Covid-19 cases breached the half-a-million mark on Saturday (May 22).

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that another 6,317 cases were reported, bringing the total cumulative cases to 505,115 since the first case in the country was reported on Jan 25 last year.

Selangor recorded the highest number of cases with 1,647 followed by Sarawak (749), Kuala Lumpur (654), Kelantan (613), Johor (477) and Penang (359).

The number of recoveries, however, is lower than new cases, with 4,694 patients being discharged in the past 24 hours.

In total, 449,234 patients or 88.9% have recovered from Covid-19 in the country with active cases now up to 53,682 cases.

There are 650 patients in intensive care units, with 370 of them requiring ventilator support.

Dr Noor Hisham also said that another 50 people died of the virus, with the death toll at 2,199 people or 0.44% of all cases.

There were another 17 new clusters reported on Saturday, bringing the total to 2,001 clusters.

There are 535 active clusters, while 1,466 clusters are declared to have ended.