New Covid-19 cases down 5.2%

The number of new Covid-19 infections recorded in the 30th epidemiological week (ME 30/2022) from July 24 to 30 dropped by 5.2% to 28,339 cases from 29,886 cases the week before.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said local infections showed a 5.3% drop from 29,858 cases in ME 29 to 28,286 in ME 30, while the number of imported cases jumped by 89.3% from 28 cases to 53.

“The number of recoveries in ME 30 also increased by 35.4% from 22,757 to 30,823 cases,” he said in a statement today.

The number of deaths in ME 30 meanwhile decreased by 28.6% to 49 cases, compared to 63 cases in ME 29.

From Jan 25, 2020 (ME 4/2020) to July 30, 2022, the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases nationwide stood at 4,677,270. Cumulative deaths stood at 35,960 cases, with 7,038 cumulative clusters, 19 of which are still active.

Noor Hisham said overall, there were no changes in the admission of Covid-19 patients to health facilities per 100,000 population in ME 30 compared with ME 29.

However, there was a 2.8% increase in the number of Covid-19 patient admissions to public hospitals per 100,000 population, with patients in Category One and Two rising by 5.6%. There were no changes for patients in Category Three, Four and Five. 

The percentage of Covid-19 bed occupancy in ME 30, for non-critical beds, ICU beds and low-risk treatment and quarantine centres (PKRC), remained at 23%, 14% and 7%, respectively.

Positive Covid-19 cases monitored by the Covid-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) nationwide continued to show an increase, based on a comparison of physical CAC data reported in ME 29 and ME 30.

“The number of patient visits to CAC increased by 3.2%, the number of new Covid-19 cases undergoing home monitoring dropped by 0.5% and the number of Covid-19 cases referred by CAC to PKRCs and hospitals decreased by 19.9%,” Noor Hisham said.

On influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance, he said 107 ILI samples had tested positive for Covid-19 with a positive rate of 14.5%, while the positive rate of SARI samples remained at 0%.