COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours declined to 212 following yesterday’s record-breaking number, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

The highest daily death was reported yesterday when 360 victims succumbed to the virus.

The cumulative death toll currently stands at 10,961.

More than 1,000 patients are currently being treated in the intensive care unit with more than half of them requiring respiratory support.

Noor Hisham said 1,095 patients are in the ICU as of today, while 579 are on ventilators.

Of the 212 deaths reported today, 76 came from Selangor. 

Twenty-four deaths were reported in Johor, 20 in Kedah, 18 in Kuala Lumpur, 16 in Pahang, 14 in Negri Sembilan, 12 in Penang, 11 in Sabah, eight in Malacca, five in Terengganu, four in Kelantan, two in Perak, and one each in Perlis and Sarawak.

There were also 16 dead-on-arrival cases.

New Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, meanwhile, declined to 17,236 infections today, down from 18,688 yesterday.

Noor Hisham said more than 50% of the new infections were patients in category 1 who were asymptomatic.

There are 8,641 (50.2%) patients in category 1, 8,223 (47.7%) in category 2, 190 (1.1%) in category 3, 57 (0.3%) in category 4 and 125 (0.7%) in category 5.

Category 2 Covid-19 patients exhibit mild symptoms, those in category 3 have pneumonia, category 4 patients are on oxygen, while category 5 are those on respiratory support.

He added that 73.57% of the patients today have not been vaccinated and urged the public get inoculated as soon as possible.

Malaysia’s average infection rate (Rt) currently stands at 1.07. The state with the highest Rt values are Kelantan (1.25), Terengganu (1.19) and Sabah (1.17).

Only Labuan and Perlis have an infection rate of lower than 1.0. – August 9, 2021.