KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia today recorded 972 new coronavirus cases, reported the Health Ministry, taking the country’s total to 41,181.
Another eight fatalities were registered, pushing up the death toll to 294.
Currently, there are 11,308 active Covid-19 cases, with 86 patients in intensive care and 31 on ventilators.
There are 1,345 new recoveries, taking the total to 29,579.
Of the 972 fresh infections, only five are imported.
The five involve two Malaysians and three foreigners returning from the Philippines, Singapore and Nepal.
For local transmissions, Sabah tops the list at 370 cases, followed by Negri Sembilan (260), Penang (34), Selangor (137), Kuala Lumpur (20), Labuan (63), Perak (51), Johor (8), Sarawak (4), Kedah (8), Melaka (5), Putrajaya (5) and Kelantan (2).
Six new clusters were identified, namely Nahaba, Numbak, Perigi, Seri Terapi, Padang and Harmoni.
The ministry announced that the Bah Perdana cluster has been contained, with 55 people screened, of whom nine were found positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the conditional movement control order (CMCO) is imposed in the whole of the peninsula except for Perlis, Pahang and Kelantan so that people’s movements are more tightly controlled.
“Once the mobility is reduced, we can bring the R naught (R0) down from 2.2 to 0.6. Currently, the R0 stands at 0.95 or 0.96, and we can still bring it down further.”
R0 refers to the infectivity rate of a virus, with a bigger number suggesting that more people will catch the disease.
Dr Noor Hisham said the spread of Covid-19 suggests that the virus is already within the community, and that it is important to strike a balance between economy and health, as well as life and livelihood.
“We want to increase public health intervention and reduce people’s movements. We have to limit border, state and district crossing so that the infectivity rate becomes lower,” he said, adding that the CMCO is producing the desired result. – The Vibes, November 9, 2020
