MALAYSIA recorded only 69 new Covid-19 infections today, the second time this week new cases number below 100. Eighty-five new cases were reported on April 15.

Recoveries continued to exceed new cases, at 201, bringing the total patients who have been discharged to 2,987, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

“Today is the best day where we have only 69 positive cases,” Noor Hisham said today at a daily press briefing on Covid-19, in Putrajaya.

The new infections reported in the last 24 hours take the number of coronavirus cases in the country to 5,251.

Minus deaths and recoveries, active cases stand at 2,198, 51 of which are in intensive care, 26 of them on ventilators.

Two men in their 80s died from the virus in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 86.

The first fatality, aged 85, was a close contact of a positive Covid-19 case linked to the “Bali cluster” in Kuantan. The deceased was receiving treatment for blood cancer at a private hospital before he was transferred on April 15 to the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital in Pahang, where he died yesterday.

The second man was 86 with a history of high blood pressure and stroke. He was also a close contact of another Covid-19 case. He was warded on April 1 in the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre, where he died last night. – April 17, 2020.