[UPDATED] Astronomical rise in M’sia’s daily Covid-19 count at over 17,000 new cases

KUALA LUMPUR – Daily Covid-19 infections have spiked yet again with 17,134 new cases logged over the last day, bringing the cumulative total to 2,956,332 infections.

A tweet by Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reported that only 86 cases – or 0.5% of cases – from today’s tally were those in Categories 3 to 5 that require hospitalisation.

Some 71.94% (12,326) of the new cases are in Category 2, while 27.56% (4,722) are Category 1. Category 3 has 58 cases, followed by 24 in Category 4 and four infections in Category 5.

Today’s tally is significantly higher than yesterday’s 13,944 new cases – a surge Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has attributed to the new Omicron variant.

Case numbers have more than tripled over the last week, with the testing positivity rate hovering around 5% with daily testing capacity ranging from 77,000 to more than 150,000 tests a day.

Dr Noor Hisham, in a subsequent tweet, shared the current Health Ministry’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) for Covid-19 cases and their close contacts that came into effect yesterday.

Tempoh Isolasi Bagi Kes COVID-19 & Tempoh Kuarantin Bagi Kontak Rapat Mengikut Status Vaksinasi COVID-19, berkuat kuasa 8 Februari 2022

Isolation Period for COVID-19 Cases & Quarantine Period for Close Contacts According To COVID-19 Vaccination Status, effective 8 February 2022 pic.twitter.com/c8HYrrrhvp

— Noor Hisham Abdullah (@DGHisham) February 9, 2022

His tweet showed that fully vaccinated asymptomatic cases will be required to isolate for seven days before being released from their quarantine order.

Patients who are unvaccinated, or with incomplete vaccinations, and those who are symptomatic must isolate for 10 days before being given their quarantine release order.

As for close contacts, the ministry has divided them into three categories: those with their booster dose, those without their booster, and the unvaccinated or those with incomplete vaccinations.

Close contacts with their boosters who remain asymptomatic should self-quarantine for five days without a compulsion to undergo any test if they do not exhibit symptoms during this period, before being released.

Those yet to receive their boosters and are asymptomatic will need to be isolated for seven days and will be released after the week, without the need to be tested if they remain symptomless.

If close contacts in both these categories begin to display symptoms, they are required to do a self RTK-Ag test or undergo screening at the closest health facility to determine the next course of treatment.

For close contacts who are unvaccinated or those yet to be completely immunised, they will have to isolate themselves for 10 days and will be released without the need for a test if they remain asymptomatic.

Those yet to be fully vaccinated must immediately test themselves, either with self-test kits or at a health facility if they begin to exhibit symptoms.

In a statement later, the ministry also reported that the nation recorded 5,681 recoveries today, making the total recovered cases 2,829,752.

“Among the cases reported today, 143 are in intensive care units while 78 of them require respiratory assistance,” Dr Noor Hisham said.

The nation has seen a total of 6,541 clusters since the beginning of the pandemic, including 15 new clusters detected today.

The number of clusters that have ended is at 6,156 while 385 clusters remain active.

The national Covid-19 infectivity rate (Rt) continues to climb upwards, as today’s rate of 1.39 shows a slight increase from yesterday’s rate of 1.32.

The statement noted that Sarawak recorded the highest rate among the states at an Rt of 1.68.

“Between February 3 until 9, the Health Ministry recorded 280 cases under a Variant of Concern, with 185 cases being the Delta variant and 95 cases of the Omicron variant,” the director-general said. – The Vibes, February 9, 2022