THE number of Covid-19 recoveries continued to outpace new cases for the fourth straight day, resulting in reduced usage of critical care facilities in hospitals.

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said there were l16,814 recoveries to 14,345 new cases today. 

He said the number of patients seeking treatment in intensive care units dropped to 1,167 from 1,194 yesterday. 

Dr Noor Hisham said of the 1,167 cases, 906 are confirmed Covid-19 cases while the remaining 261 are suspected cases and cases under investigation. 

A total of 636 patients are on ventilators, a drop by 29 cases compared to yesterday’s 665. 

As for those on respiratory support, 407 are confirmed Covid-19 cases and the other 229 are suspected, probable and cases under investigation. 

Meanwhile, Noor Hisham said of the 14,345 new infections, only 212 or 1.5% were in the more serious stages of categories 3, 4 and 5.

The health DG said that the remaining 14,133 individuals or 98.5% were in the less severe categories of 1 and 2, displaying no to mild symptoms. 

Besides this, Noor Hisham said 23 new Covid-19 clusters were traced by the health ministry as of noon today, which accounted for 529 cases.

Of the 23 clusters reported, 13 were linked to workplaces (310 cases), eight were traced to community transmissions (165 cases), one was detected at a high-risk group (30 cases) and one was labelled as an import cluster (24 cases).

The “import” cluster was detected in Johor and it involved the crew of a ship anchored in Tompok Utara, east of Johor waters.

The ship has a travel history to Singapore and Indonesia before docking in Johor on September 15.

Including the sole import cluster, Johor reported the most clusters with seven, followed by Kelantan (five) and Sarawak (four). 

Perak had three new clusters while Sabah, Selangor, Malacca and Pahang reported one new cluster each. 

This brings the total number of clusters in the country to 5,305, of which 1,335 are still active while 3,970 have ended. – September 20, 2021.