THE number of active Covid-19 cases continued to increase yesterday as Malaysia reported 4,774 new infections against 3,232 recoveries, the Health Ministry (MOH) said.

It was the 14th day in a row daily cases had outnumbered recoveries as active cases rose to 54,777.

According to MOH, most of the active cases were in the less severe categories.

Yesterday saw 864 coronavirus patients admitted to hospital and 13 new deaths from infection.

Of the total active cases, 46,643 patients were in home quarantine, 4,365 in low-risk quarantine centres and 3,655 in hospitals.

The hospital utilisation rate increased to 62.3% yesterday from 59.2% the day before, with coronavirus cases accounting for 37.6% of the take-up rate.

Ventilator utilisation was at 32.4% while intensive care unit occupancy was at 51.1%, of which 13.4% were taken up by Covid patients.

The hospital admission rate indicates the severity of the virus. Hospital utilisation includes bed occupancy as well as the number of patients in ICU and on ventilators.

Selangor registered the most hospital admissions at 224, followed by Johor (200) and Sabah (100).

Other states and territories reporting new ward admission were Kelantan (61), Sarawak (49), Kuala Lumpur (44), Perak (39), Negri Sembilan (38), Kedah (33), Malacca (24), Penang (16), Pahang (15), Terengganu (10), Perlis (6) and Putrajaya (5).

Labuan did not report new hospital patients.

Malacca posted the highest hospital bed utilisation rate, including for non-Covid cases, at 75.1%.

Of the 4,774 new Covid-19 cases reported yesterday, 99.2% of them were in the asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic categories while 0.8% were in the more severe categories of 3, 4 and 5.

A total of 1,576 or 33% of the new cases were from the Klang Valley. Selangor logged 1,166, Kuala Lumpur (379) and Putrajaya (31).

Other states and territories registering new cases were Johor (796), Kedah (505), Sabah (367), Kelantan (341), Penang (304), Negri Sembilan (254), Pahang (202), Malacca (167), Perak (158), Terengganu (78), Sarawak (14), Perlis (11) and Labuan (1).

Meanwhile, of the 13 new fatalities, four were dead on arrival (DOA). All deaths were backdated.

Three deaths each occurred in Johor and Kelantan, two in Sabah, and one each in Negri Sembilan, Perak, Selangor, Terengganu and Kuala Lumpur.

Three of the DOA cases were in Kelantan and one in Sabah.

The Covid death toll stood at 31,978.

The local virus mortality rate was at 0.3% while the two-week average for virus deaths stood at 37 per 10 million people. – February 1, 2022.