PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 daily figures have set two new gloomy records – 19,819 new cases and 257 deaths were reported.

       The latest total cases reported yesterday surpassed the previous record of 17,786 on July 31.

       The daily record for deaths before this was 219, reported on Monday.

       In his daily Covid-19 statement, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 98.1% (19,444 infections) of yesterday’s total were either asymptomatic or mild cases.

       About 1.9% or 375 cases were those in Categories 3, 4 and 5.

       Of yesterday’s cases, almost 82% involved patients who were not vaccinated.

       At least 54% of the cases (10,810) were those traced from close contacts, while 34% (6,907) were sporadic infections. Another 10% (2,079) were cases linked to clusters, and there were also 23 imported cases.

       Selangor remained the state with the highest number of new cases at 8,377.

       Four other states also reported more than 1,000 cases: Kuala Lumpur with 2,467, Kedah (1,371), Johor (1,162) and Kelantan (1,003).

       Cumulatively, Malaysia has registered 1,183,110 cases since the pandemic began.

       Of the 257 deaths, Dr Noor Hisham said 226 were Malaysians while 31 were foreign nationals.

       At least 206 casualties had some form of comorbidity. There were 21 cases classified as “brought in dead”.

       Selangor reported the most number of fatalities with 91, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 74, Johor (25) and Melaka (24).

       Malaysia’s Covid-19 death toll has now reached 9,855.

       Currently, 1,069 patients are in intensive care, three more than the day before. A total of 553 patients are on ventilator support.

       The total number of active Covid-19 cases continued its ascending trend to 210,552.

       Yesterday, there were also 12,704 more patients discharged from treatment. Total recoveries now stand at 962,733 or 81.4% of all cases.

       As at Aug 3, the national infectivity rate was at an Rt of 1.07, with Kelantan having the highest at 1.31.

       Out of 35 new Covid-19 clusters reported by the Health Ministry, 13 were in Kelantan.

       Nine of the clusters in the east coast state were community outbreaks, including those stemming from the recent Hari Raya Aidiladha festivities.