THE number of cases treated in intensive care units and those requiring respiratory support showed an upward trend today despite the country reporting more Covid-19 recoveries than new cases. 
 
Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that 1,223 patients were seeking treatment in the ICU, where 891 were confirmed Covid-19 cases.

A total of 332 were suspected cases and cases under investigation. 
 
Noor Hisham said 720 patients were on respiratory support, where 410 are confirmed Covid-19 cases and the remaining 310 were suspected, probable and cases under investigation. 
 
Yesterday, the ICU and ventilator figure stood at 1,222 and 710 respectively. 
 
Meanwhile, Malaysia today reported 22,970 recoveries against 17,577 new cases.
 
This ends the two-day run where the country logged more new cases than recoveries. 
 
Of the new cases reported today, only 244 or 1.4% of the cases were in the more serious stage of infections, that is, under categories 3, 4 and 5.
 
The remaining 17,333 cases were in the asymptomatic and mild symptoms categories of 1 and 2. 
 
Nineteen new Covid-19 clusters were traced in the past 24 hours, which contributed 872 cases.
 
Of the new clusters, 11 were linked to workplaces (741 cases), six were traced to community infection (109 cases) and two were in the high-risk groups (22 cases).
 
Among the states reporting new clusters are Johor and Perak (four each), Pahang (three), Selangor and Kelantan (two), Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Kedah and Sarawak (one each).
 
The 19 clusters today brought the total number of clusters in the country to 5,247, where 1,387 of them are still active while 3,860 have ended. – September 17, 2021.