KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): Only 1.6 per cent or 308 of the 19,495 new Covid-19 cases reported on Wednesday (Sept 15) are in categories three, four and five.

       Category 3 is classified as those with pneumonia and requiring hospital treatment and observation, category 4 (pneumonia and requiring oxygen) and category 5 (critical and requiring ventilator).

       Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 19,187 cases or 98.4 per cent were in categories 1 and 2, with no symptoms and mild symptoms, respectively.

       "Of the total new cases, 11 are import cases involving five Malaysians and six foreigners while 19,484 cases are local transmissions involving 17,860 citizens and 1,624 non-citizens.

       "There are 18,760 recoveries today, bringing the cumulative number to 1,783,339 or 87.8 per cent,” he said in a statement.

       Dr Noor Hisham said 1,272 cases were being treated in the intensive care units (ICU) with 641 of them requiring respiratory support.

       He also said that 25 new clusters were detected on Wednesday, with 14 of them linked to workplaces, community clusters (seven), high-risk groups (two) and one each related to education and religion.

       Dr Noor Hisham said the number of active clusters stood at 1,424, while 3,783 clusters had ended so far.

       He also disclosed that the Covid-19 infectivity rate or R-naught (Rt) in Malaysia on Tuesday (Sept 14) was 0.96, with Sarawak being the state having the highest Rt rate of 1.11, followed by Perlis (1.04), Johor and Pahang (1.01), and Penang and Kelantan (1.0).

       The other states recorded RT of below 1.0, namely Perak (0.99), Sabah (0.92), Melaka (0.92), Kedah (0.91), Putrajaya (0.88), Negeri Sembilan (0.86), Perlis (0.86), Selangor (0.83), Kuala Lumpur (0.79) and Labuan (zero).- Bernama