AFTER almost 10 days of fewer than 3,000 new Covid-19 infections daily, Malaysia reported 3,545 cases in the past 24 hours, with bulk of them from a factory in Negri Sembilan, said Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. 

There were also 12 deaths – 11 Malaysians and a foreigner – bringing the death toll to 1,088..

Except for February 21 when Malaysia recorded 3,297 new cases, the number daily cases has been in the 2,000 range since February 14.

Negri Sembilan recorded the most cases with 1,392, followed by Selangor with 581 and Kuala Lumpur with 381. 

Dr Noor Hisham said the bulk of Negri Sembilan’s cases – 1,388 – were from the Sungai Gadut Industri cluster, a workplace cluster involving the districts of Seremban, Rembau and Tampin.

This cluster was first identified on February 22, following a targeted screening exercise among factory workers. The first cases in the cluster reported positive on February 16.

“As of today, a total of 1,432 cases have been reported in this cluster, which involves 318 Malaysians and 1,114 foreigners,” Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement, adding that the factory was ordered to close on February 21.

Today’s new cases takes the cumulative total to 291,774.

Of all the new cases today, only one was an imported case, involving a foreigner.

The local transmissions involved 1,544 Malaysians and 2,000 foreigners. 

There were also 3,331 recoveries today, taking the total number of recoveries in the country to 260,009.

Active cases now stand at 30,667, of which 189 are in intensive care, with 88 of them intubated. – February 24, 2021.