PETALING JAYA: More than half the 6,774 Covid-19 clusters reported since the start of the pandemic were linked to workplaces, says Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       However, the numbers have been on the decline since vaccination was ramped up, he added.

       Dr Noor Hisham said a total of 542,296 cases were reported from the 6,774 clusters identified between Jan 25, 2020 and last Saturday (Feb 26).

       He added that 6,280 clusters have ended while 494 are still active.

       Of this number, workplaces accounted for 3,494 clusters or 58.46% of the total reported within the period, followed by community (20.41%), detention centres (7.62%) and education (7.22%).

       Other clusters such as religious activities, high risk groups and imported cases made up the remaining numbers.

       As at Feb 26, there were 86 workplace clusters still active.

       “For 2022 (as at Feb 26), there were 133 workplace clusters reported. The total number of workplace clusters reported this year is only 4% of total workplace clusters reported (since 2020),” he said in a statement.

       Dr Noor Hisham said these clusters were identified in the manufacturing, services, public administration, agriculture, construction and mining and quarrying sub-sectors.

       Commenting on the trend, he said the highest number of workplace clusters was reported in the period between Aug 15 and Aug 21 last year, but the trend saw a decline about a month later.

       “This is in line with the success of the vaccination programme, although there was (more mobility) among people during the Recovery Phases,” he said.

       This year, he said the highest number of workplace clusters was reported in the sixth epidemiological week, when 23 clusters were detected.

       However, there was a downtrend in subsequent weeks with only 14 clusters reported in the seventh and eighth weeks.

       “A total of 201,281 of the overall cases (63%) from workplace clusters involved non-citizens,” he said.

       He added that investigations pointed to transmission in the workplace (56.8%) as the main cause of transmission, followed by workers' hostels (29.08%), shared accomodation (13.38%), other places (0.51%) and rented homes (0.23%) as the sources of infection. -