PUTRAJAYA: About 97.8% of the country’s latest Covid-19 cases were either mild and asymptomatic infections, says the Health Ministry.

       Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said of the 19,733 new cases reported on Wednesday (Sept 8), 19,304 were Category 1 and 2 infections.

       “Another 429 cases (2.2%) are those in Category 3, 4 and 5,” said Dr Noor Hisham in his daily Covid-19 statement.

       About 91% of the new cases involved were either unvaccinated individuals (76%), or those who had not completed their vaccination dosage (15%).

       “This situation clearly shows that individuals who are fully vaccinated are more protected and also less at risk of getting a severe Covid-19 infection.

       “So those who have not been vaccinated are advised to quickly get jabbed to protect themselves and the people around them from the possibility of being infected with Covid-19,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

       The ministry also reported 361 more Covid-19 deaths in Malaysia.

       This has taken the country’s Covid-19 death toll up to 19,163.

       Selangor (67 deaths) and Johor (65) reported the most number of fatalities.

       Some 102 deaths have been classified as “brought-in-dead” (BID) cases.

       Another 22,701 people were discharged, which means recoveries had outnumbered new cases for the eighth consecutive day.

       Currently, there are 248,673 active Covid-19 cases.

       Meanwhile, the Health Ministry also detected 35 new Covid-19 clusters.

       This brings the number of active ones to 1,459.

       Of the new clusters, 20 were workplace-related outbreaks and at least 916 confirmed cases are linked to them.

       Another 11 clusters are community outbreaks, with at least 276 positive cases from them.