KUALA LUMPUR: Nearly three million people in Malaysia have been infected by the Covid-19 virus while active cases have swelled to over 100,000 as of Thursday (Feb 11).

       Malaysia has been battered by five-figure new infections for five days in a row, with the highest number (19,090 cases) recorded on Thursday, hiking the nation’s cumulative Covid-19 cases to 2,975,422.

       The highest-ever single-day figure recorded by Malaysia was 24,599 cases on Aug 26, 2021.

       As of 11.59 pm on Thursday, the Health Ministry's CovidNow data showed a total of 107,883 active cases in the country.

       Malaysia started grappling with five-figure new cases daily on Feb 6 when the number spiked to 10,089.

       Prior to that, the last time the nation recorded over 10,000 new cases was on July 13, 2021 (11,079 cases).

       The Health Ministry’s daily new case data for the period under review (Feb 5-10) is as follows: Feb 5 (9,117), Feb 6 (10,089), Feb 7 (11,034), Feb 8 (13,944), Feb 9 (17,134) and Feb 10 (19,090).

       Spike in cases

       Malaysia’s new Covid-19 cases were expected to peak towards the end of March, as indicated by Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin on Feb 6 when new case numbers surpassed 10,000.

       He said the Omicron wave had "finally, officially hit Malaysia and is expected to peak at the end of March".

       Other Asean member states had also been reporting five-figure new cases daily.

       According to Worldometer’s data early on Friday (Feb 11), Indonesia reported 40,618 new cases, Thailand 14,822, Vietnam 26,032 and Singapore 10,686.

       Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned last Tuesday (Feb 8) that a sub-variant of Omicron, namely BA.2, was currently causing infections in England and Denmark, as well as India and South Africa.

       The Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa at the end of November 2021 and has since caused an exponential rise in cases in many countries around the world.

       Some experts opined that the sub-variant is most likely to replace Omicron as the dominant virus.

       The recent spike in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia saw some states recording four-digit new case numbers, as shown here:

       Feb 5 - Selangor (2,490) and Sabah (1,205);

       Feb 6 - Selangor (2,549), Johor (1,582) and Sabah (1,285);

       Feb 7 - Selangor (2,411), Sabah (1,600), Kedah (1,448) and Johor (1,369);

       Feb 8 - Selangor (3,031), Sabah (2,069), Johor (1,680), Kedah (1,463), Kelantan (1,105), Penang (1,023) and Kuala Lumpur (1,022);

       Feb 9 - Selangor (3,582), Sabah (3,333), Johor (2,321), Kedah (1,569), Kelantan (1,222), Kuala Lumpur (1,068) and Penang (1,010);

       Feb 10 - Selangor (3,779), Sabah (2,969), Johor (2,837), Kedah (1,956), Kelantan (1,439), Penang (1,267) and Kuala Lumpur (1,005).

       According to the Health Minitry’s CovidNow data, as at 11.59pm on Thursday, out of the 107,883 active cases in the country, a total of 96,655 (89.6%) were undergoing home quarantine.

       Another 5,751 cases (5.3%) were being quarantined at Covid-19 quarantine and treatment centres while 5,319 (4.9%) were hospitalised.

       Eighty cases (0.1%) were in the intensive care unit (ICU) but did not require breathing assistance while another 78 (0.1%) cases in the ICU required respiratory aid.

       With its cases totalling 2,975,422, Malaysia now stood at the 28th spot among the 225 countries and territories affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

       Ahead of Malaysia is Portugal (3,025,421) and Canada (3,167,844).

       Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said out of the 19,090 new cases reported on Thursday, only 113 (0.6%) were in categories three, four and five while 18,977 were in categories one and two.

       The Health Ministry lists category 5 patients as critical cases requiring ventilators. Category 4 patients required oxygen assistance while category 4 is for those with lung inflammation.

       Patients who were asymptomatic and experience mild symptoms are placed in categories one and two respectively.

       on Thursday, a total 5,712 cases recovered from Covid-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,835,464 (95.3% of total cases).

       Meanwhile, the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R0/Rt value nationwide breached the 1.00 mark this week. The daily R0 value for the week under review is as follows: Feb 5 (1.20), Feb 6 (1.27), Feb 7 (1.32), Feb 8 (1.39), Feb 9 (1.47) and Feb 10 (1.51).

       The states with the highest R0 values as of yesterday were Labuan (2.17), Sarawak (1.90) and Sabah (1.68). - Bernama