Covid-19 (Dec 15): 3,900 cases

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported 3,900 new Covid-19 cases today, bringing the cumulative infections to 2,703,140.

The fresh infections were surpassed by a total of 4,552 Covid-19 patients who recovered today. This is expected to help reduce the number of active cases.

The spread of the disease continues to be on a downtrend, from an R-number of 0.99 on Tuesday last week to 0.93 yesterday. The figure is now at its lowest since Nov 8.

Nevertheless, several states still have an R-number at or above the 1.00 threshold. These are: Negeri Sembilan (1.02), Malacca (1.01), Pahang (1.01), Perlis (1.00), Penang (1.00), and Labuan (1.00).

An R-number above 1.00 would indicate an outbreak is growing at an accelerating pace, whereas a number below that threshold indicates an outbreak that is in decline.

Patients in ICU: 384
Intubated: 213

As of today, the number of Covid-19 patients (including suspected ones) in the intensive care unit (ICU) is 11.7 percent lower compared to a week ago.

Those who require intubation have also declined by 10.1 percent from a week ago.

Nationally, the number of hospital admissions of confirmed Covid-19 patients in the last seven days have declined by 5.5 percent compared to the preceding week.

However, bucking the national trend, hospital admissions of confirmed Covid-19 patients in Penang (+30.3 percent) and Negeri Sembilan (+25.8 percent) rose during the same period.

To date, 246 Covid-19 clusters are still active, including seven new clusters reported today.

The ongoing clusters have seen an increase of 0.4 percent from the 245 active clusters a week ago.

The Health Ministry will only publish today's breakdown of new cases by states after midnight on its CovidNow portal.

The breakdown by states for yesterday (Dec 14), where 4,097 new cases were reported, is as follows:

Selangor (1,021)
Johor (436)
Kelantan (428)
Pahang (329)
Kuala Lumpur (317)
Penang (285)
Kedah (267)
Sabah (232)
Terengganu (183)
Negeri Sembilan (159)
Malacca (159)
Perak (139)
Sarawak (64)
Perlis (39)
Putrajaya (27)
Labuan (12)