Selangor records highest Omicron cases

PETALING JAYA: A total of 119 Covid-19 cases in the last three days have been confirmed to be of the Omicron variant, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

In his daily statement, Dr Noor Hisham said between Feb 9 and 11, a total of 188 variant of concern (VOC) cases were reported.

The remaining 69 cases of the VOC were of the Delta variant.

Selangor recorded 51 Omicron variant cases, the highest of all the states and territories.

To date, 815 cases have been confirmed to be of the Omicron variant.

The infectivity rate also saw a spike with Labuan at 2.17 and Sarawak at 1.90.

The current national infectivity rate stood at 1.51.

Yesterday also saw the country breaching the 20,000-mark with 20,939 new Covid-19 cases.

The last time daily new cases exceeded 20,000 was on Sept 10 last year with 21,176 cases.

Dr Noor Hisham also said there were 5,807 recoveries and 118 cases under categories 3, 4 and 5, or 0.6% of the total daily infections.

In a separate statement, Health deputy director-general (public health) and National Rapid Response Task Force co-chairman Datuk Dr Chong Chee Kheong said Virtual Covid-19 Assessment Centres to monitor home quarantine cases would be increased following a spike in infections.

“The ministry will increase surveillance capacity to 200,000 individuals by next week.

“While vaccinations are not the exit to this crisis, it has helped prevent worse symptoms and reduced its impact.

“All states have been directed to increase vaccination with focus on students and booster shots,” he said.