A TOTAL of 26,616 new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the 44th epidemiological week (EW44/2022) from October 30 to November 5, an increase of 57.3% over the 16,917 cases logged in the previous week, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said.

He said local Covid-19 cases rose by 57.4% to 26,577 cases from 16,890 cases in EW43.

“Imported cases, too, increased by 44.4% from 27 to 39 cases. 

“The number of deaths in EW44 increased by 45%, from 20 to 29 cases,” he said in a statement today.

He said the average number of daily active cases in EW44 was 33,449 compared to 28,252 cases, an 18.4% increase from the previous week.

Noor Hisham said between January 25, 2020 and November 5, 2022, cumulatively, 923,538 new cases and 4,850,491 recoveries were recorded.

The fatalities recorded during this period totalled 36,493 and there were 7,104 clusters with 21 of them still active.

The admission of Covid-19 patients to hospitals and low-risk treatment centres per 100,000 people saw an overall increase of 26.1%.

He said admissions for categories one and two, which are asymptomatic and symptomatic increased by 39.4%, while those for categories three, four and five were up 37.4 %.

Following the increase in Covid-19 cases as well as hospital admissions and reports of Omicron XBB subvariant cases in several states, Noor Hisham advised the public to take preventive measures by wearing a mask and getting the Covid-19 vaccine or booster dose. – Bernama, November 7, 2022.