PETALING JAYA: The occupancy rate at Intensive Care Units in nine states is over 50% as of Wednesday (March 2), says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       He said that the occupancy rate for the different states stands at 67% for the Federal Territory of Putrajaya, Perlis (64%), Kelantan (60%), Johor (59%), the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (58%), Sabah (55%), Melaka (53%), Selangor (51%), and Penang (50%).

       As for Covid-19 Integrated Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRC), Dr Noor Hisham said that only Melaka has an occupancy rate of 61%.

       He added that the non-ICU occupancy rate is over 50% in Selangor (113%), FT Kuala Lumpur (106%), Perak (102%), Kelantan (93%),Perlis (91%), Pahang (70%), FT Putrajaya (67%), Johor (66%), Sarawak (64%), Penang (61%), and Sabah (53%).

       "Covid-19 patients requiring ventilators increased to 194 patients and the percentage of ventilator use is 40% of the total ventilators available for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

       He said that as of Wednesday, the number of Covid-19 cases that have been hospitalised stands at 1,841.

       “From this number, 677 cases are in Categories 3, 4 and 5 while 1,164 cases are in Categories 1 and 2," Dr Noor Hisham said in a statement on Thursday (March 3).

       He added that there are 27,500 new cases as of Wednesday, which brings the total cumulative cases to 3,496,090 while 27,557 recoveries have been recorded.

       Dr Noor Hisham added that of the daily 27,500 cases reported, 189 cases (0.69%) are in Categories 3, 4, and 5 while the remaining 27,311 cases (99.31%) are in Categories 1 and 2.

       He also said that there were 428 new imported cases, of which 389 are Malaysians and 39 are non-Malaysians, he said.

       Dr Noor Hisham then said that there are 360 cases requiring treatment at Intensive Care Units and of this, 139 are confirmed cases and 221 are suspected, possible and under investigation cases.

       "Nine new clusters were detected, which brings the total number of active clusters to 475,” he said.

       Sarawak recorded the highest Covid-19 infectivity rate (Rt) in the country with 1.43 while Sabah only recorded 0.96, he added.