MALAYSIA recorded 2,148 new Covid-19 infections today, passing the 2,000 mark for the first time since February 28, when 2,437 new cases were reported.

The Ministry of Health and director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah simultaneously released the latest figures on their respective Twitter accounts ahead of the ministry’s daily press statement on new infections.

The new high raises the country’s cumulative number of cases to 367,977.

Yesterday’s figure for new daily cases was 1, 889, the highest in 40 days.

The surge comes as Noor Hisham announced earlier today that rate of infectivity, or R0, had risen to 1.14 as of yesterday, after a four-day increase.

Yesterday, he also announced the detection of the more infectious South African B.1.351 variant in 17 local cases.

The spike in cases and the emergence of the South African variant comes when the government allowed Ramadan bazaars to open, coinciding with the start of the holy month on Tuesday.

Over the past 24 hours, Sarawak reported 512 cases, followed by Selangor with 459, Kelantan (221), Sabah (202), Johor (182), Kuala Lumpur (171) and Penang (134).

Every state reported new cases, but the only three with single digit infections were Putrajaya (three), Labuan (eight) and Perlis (one). – April 15, 2021.