PUTRAJAYA: The country recorded 19,495 more Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours.

       With this, the cumulative number of cases since the pandemic began early last year now stands at 2,030,935, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       Sarawak rose again to become the state with the highest number of cases after reporting 4,709 new infections.

       In the Klang Valley, the number of fresh infections totalled 3,089 with Selangor recording 2,710 cases, Kuala Lumpur 363 and Putrajaya 16.

       Dr Noor Hisham said of the total, 98.4% had mild to asymptomatic infections and 308 cases (1.6%) were those in Categories 3 to 5.

       He added that 18,760 patients were discharged from treatment.

       Since the pandemic began, 1,783,339 people in Malaysia have recovered from Covid-19.

       The Health Ministry also identified 25 new clusters, taking the active number to 1,424.

       The ministry’s CovidNow website shows that the number of active Covid-19 cases continues to be on the downward trend, with 225,277 cases reported on Tuesday. This is a reduction of 2,847 active cases from the previous day.

       Of the total active cases, 186,094 or 82.6% are patients with mild infections undergoing home quarantine.

       Another 25,238 (11.2%) are under isolation at low-risk quarantine centres.

       Some 12,703 (5.6%) are hospitalised, while another 1,242 are at intensive care units (ICUs).

       The national ICU utilisation rate is currently at 81.7%, down from 84.8% the previous day.