PETALING JAYA: A total of 89 new clusters were reported on the fifth epidemiological week (ME) from Jan 30 until Feb 5, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       This was a decrease of 32.5% with 27 clusters declared ended compared to the corresponding period in the previous week.

       “The total number of active clusters, however, stands at 353 which is a 21.3% increase compared to the previous corresponding period,” he said in his daily statement.

       Of the 89 new clusters, 52 were from educational institutions, 20 from workplaces, seven from within the community, six within high-risk groups, three from detention centres and one from religious activities.

       A total of 43,062 new Covid-19 cases were also recorded from Jan 30 to Feb 5, which was a 34.7% increase compared to the previous week.

       “There was, however, an 8.1% decrease in the number of deaths while the number of current active cases stood at 58,099 cases.

       “The number of recoveries also showed an increase by as much as 15.6%.”

       He added that the total number of cases requiring treatment in Intensive Care Units (ICU) also showed a decreasing trend for the past 12 weeks, while the number of cases requiring respiratory assistance showed a drop for the past 24 weeks.

       “This situation shows the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine with 80% of the total population having received at least one dose as of Feb 7.

       “We hope that the public will register and receive their full vaccinations as a means to protect themselves from complications which could arise from Covid-19,” he said.

       Dr Noor Hisham added that the average value of national infectivity rate or Rt (pronounced R-naught) had increased by 1.15%, to between 1.13-1.16 on the fifth ME and was expected to increase in week 6.

       The national Rt currently stands at 1.32 with all states apart from Labuan having an Rt of over 1 with Labuan having 0.0.

       The states with the highest Rt were Sabah and Perlis (1.54), Sarawak (1.48), Terengganu (1.36), Kedah (1.32), Putrajaya (1.29), Penang (1.25) Johor and Pahang (1.24), Selangor, Perak and Melaka (1.23) followed by Kelantan (1.16), Negeri Sembilan (1.12) and Kuala Lumpur (1.09).