PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 daily case figures remained below the 10,000 mark for the sixth consecutive day, with infections recording a slight increase in the Klang Valley.

       In his daily Covid-19 statement, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the country recorded 9,751 new cases, of which nearly 98% were mild or asymptomatic infections.

       “Of the 9,751 cases, 9,545 or 97.9% of them are Categories One and Two patients.

       “Another 206 cases (2.1%) are Categories Three, Four and Five patients.

       “Cumulatively, the country has recorded 2,323,478 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

       There were 15 imported cases, involving 11 Malaysians and four foreign nationals.

       Of the local cases, 93.7% were Malaysians and 6.3% were foreigners.

       Selangor recorded the highest number of cases among states with 1,796 new infections, up from 1,402 on Thursday and 1,116 on Wednesday.

       Kuala Lumpur reported 313 new cases, after nearly two weeks of its infection numbers staying below 300.

       Besides Selangor, two other states reported four-digit case increases – Sarawak with 1,339 cases and Kelantan with 1,052.

       Malaysia’s infectivity rate is at an Rt level of 0.86, as of Thursday.

       Putrajaya (Rt 1.11) and Perlis (Rt 1.07) are the only states to record an Rt level of above 1.0 (an Rt of less than 1 means the infection is not spreading).

       In the same 24-hour span, Malaysia discharged 12,724 Covid-19 patients from treatment.

       This brings the total number of recoveries to 2,170,289, which is a recovery rate of 93.4%.

       The number of patients in intensive care units (ICU) is now 792, a decrease from 827 the previous day.

       Of that, 386 are patients on ventilator support.

       Nationwide, the ICU utilisation rate is now at 64%.

       The Health Ministry also identified 10 new infection clusters nationwide. The current total of active ones is 874.