MALAYSIA is reaping its reward from a successful vaccination campaign as certain key Covid-19 indicators continue to drop and show signs of improvement. 

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the number of patients treated in intensive care units dropped to 835 cases today from 888 yesterday. 

He said of the patients admitted to the ICU, 815 of them were confirmed to have contracted coronavirus, while the 20 others were suspected cases and cases under investigation. 

Noor Hisham also said that there were 535 patients who required ventilator support. Of them, 355 were confirmed Covid-19 cases and 180 were suspected, probable and cases under investigation. 

Meanwhile, the director-general said the number of recoveries continued to outpace new infections by almost 5,000 as 14,454 people recuperated from the virus compared as opposed to 9,066 new cases. 

Only 159 cases or 1.8% of the new infections were under the severe categories of 3, 4 and 5. 

A total of 8,907 patients or 98.2% cases were classified under the less serious asymptomatic and mildly asymptomatic categories of 1 and 2.

Besides this, after several months reporting Covid-19 clusters in double-figures, the ministry only traced six new clusters as of noon today, which accounted for a combined 140 cases.

The last time Malaysia reported fewer than 10 clusters in a single day was on May 13, with eight clusters.

Of the new Covid-19 clusters, three were linked to workplaces (88 cases) and three traced to communities (52).

Kelantan, Johor and Pahang logged two clusters each. Each state reported one workplace and one community cluster respectively. 

Noor Hisham said the number of active clusters reduced from 1,044 yesterday to 1,008 today. A total of 4,499 clusters have ended. – October 3, 2021.