KUALA LUMPUR – The number of new Covid-19 cases in the first epidemiological week (ME 1/2023) from January 1 to 7, recorded a drop of 14.2%, to 3,231 cases compared with 3,767 cases reported in the previous week.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that during that period, the number of local cases dropped by 14%, from 3,735 to 3,213 cases.
The number of imported cases was also lower by 43.8%, from 32 cases to 18 cases, he said in a statement today.
Dr Noor Hisham said the number of recoveries also showed a drop of 35.6% (from 5,869 recorded in the previous week to 3,781 cases).
He added that in ME 1/2023, the number of deaths has also dropped by 4.5% (from 22 to 21 cases).
According to him, cumulatively, there were 5,029,908 new cases of Covid-19 recorded from ME 4/2020 (January 25, 2020) to January 7 this year, with a total of 4,981,975 recoveries and 36,874 deaths reported in the same period.
Dr Noor Hisham also said that the cumulative number of clusters was 7,167, with nine of them still active.
On admissions to hospitals and low-risk Covid-19 treatment centres for every 100,000 people, Dr Noor Hisham said that overall, it had dropped by 2%.
He said admissions to public hospitals for Category 1 (asymptomatic) and Category 2 (with symptoms) saw a decline of 15.4% while for Category 3 (with lung infection), 4 (requiring oxygen aid) and 5 (on ventilator) dropped by 7.7%.
In addition, he said that the bed occupancy rate, including non-critical care beds and intensive care unit beds, as well as Covid-19 positive cases monitored by the Covid-19 Assessment Centre nationwide have also decreased. – Bernama, January 9, 2023
