Covid-19: 486 Delta variant cases detected from Jan 10-14, says Health DG

PETALING JAYA: There were 486 cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant recorded from Jan 10 to Jan 14, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Dr Noor Hisham also said Universiti Malaysia Sarawak’s Institute of Health and Community Medicine identified 317 cases of the Delta variant categorised as Variant of Concern (VOC).

He added that the Universiti Malaya Faculty of Medicine, the Integrative Pharmacogenomics Institute and the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Molecular Biology Institute identified 84, 58, and 27 new cases, respectively, that were also of the Delta variant.

"This makes the cumulative cases that were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is categorised as the VOC and the Variant of Interest (VOI) at 6,246 cases.

"Of this, 6,226 cases were the VOC, while 20 cases were the VOI," he said in a statement on Friday (Jan 14).

To date, Dr Noor Hisham said for the VOC, there were 5,726 Delta variant cases, 253 (Omicron), 233 (Beta) and 14 (Alpha).

For the VOI cases, he said there were 13 Theta variant cases, four (Kappa) and three (Eta).

Separately, Dr Noor Hisham said the country recorded 3,346 new cases, of which 3,079 cases were local transmission and 267 cases were imported.

"Of the 3,346 cases reported today, 49 cases (2%) were in Categories Three, Four and Five, while 3,297 cases (98%) consisted of those in Categories One and Two," he said.

Dr Noor Hisham added that there were 3,052 total recoveries today, bringing the cumulative recoveries to 2,729,943.

He added there were 204 cases in intensive care, with 95 cases requiring ventilator support.

There were also three new clusters reported, bringing the cumulative active clusters in the country to 172.