Covid-19: Recoveries outnumber new cases, says Health Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR: The number of recoveries from Covid-19 have outnumbered new cases on Sunday (Nov 21), reversing the trend of the past four days.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said there were 5,525 recoveries recorded compared to 4,854 new cases.

Cumulatively, the country has 2,586,601 cases and 2,487,809 recoveries.

"There are 541 cases requiring treatment in intensive care units (ICU)," he said, adding that 420 were confirmed Covid-19 cases and 121 were suspected, probable or still under investigation.

A total of 267 cases require ventilator support, he added.

"Of the new 4,854 daily cases, 86 cases (1.8%) were from categories 3, 4 and 5 while 4,768 cases (98.2%) were from categories 1 and 2," he said.

Category 1 means a patient is asymptomatic. Category 2 is for those with mild symptoms.

Category 3 cases experience pneumonia while cases in Category 4 have pneumonia and require oxygen. Category 5 patients are in critical stage requiring ventilator support.

Of the new 4,854 cases, Dr Noor Hisham said 12 were imported cases while 4,842 were local infections.

The total number of active clusters is 235.

The latest data by the Health Ministry also showed that the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R-nought (Rt) in Malaysia was 1.01 with Putrajaya showing the highest at 1.17, followed by Labuan (1.16) while Kuala Lumpur, Kelantan and Selangor registering at 1.08. The states with lowests Rt are Sabah (0.98), Perlis (0.90) and Sarawak 0.84).