COVID-19 cases rose for the second day in a row with 22,642 fresh infections in the past 24 hours, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today.

Healthcare services were given a brief reprieve on Monday when cases dropped to 17,642, the lowest in 13 days. However, it was just a temporary dip, with numbers rising to 20,873 yesterday.

Four states reported a record number of cases today: Kedah with 2,279 cases, Johor with 1,832 cases, Kelantan with 1,424 cases and Perak with 1,390 cases.

The previous high in Kedah was 2,143 cases reported on August 12, while Johor’s record was 1,743 reported yesterday. Kelantan also topped its previous high of 1,424 yesterday and Perak had previously reported a high of 1,248 cases on August 20.

Meanwhile, for the 125th consecutive day, Selangor has recorded the highest daily cases by state with 6,325 infections, following a drop in reported cases to roughly 4,000 for the past two days.

Combining the cases in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur (1,128) and Putrajaya (21) today, a total of 7,474 cases were logged in the Klang Valley, which is equivalent to 33% of the overall cases nationwide.

Sabah was the second highest state with 3,224 infections.

Other states reporting new cases are Sarawak (1,667), Penang (1,427), Terengganu (744), Pahang (522), Malacca (342), Negri Sembilan (269) and Perlis (44).

Labuan, the first federal territory/state in the country to enter phase four of the national recovery plan, only reported four new cases.

Meanwhile, Malaysia administered 420,164 Covid-19 vaccine doses yesterday.

A total of 155,004 people received their first dose, while 265,130 others received their second jab.

To date, 13.6 million (58%) of the adult population have been vaccinated, while 18.6 million (79.6%) have received one jab.

In total, 31.8 million vaccine doses have been administered since the vaccination programme started on February 24. – August 25, 2021.