1,153 new Covid cases with 199 in Sabah

Kuala Lumpur: A total of 1,153 new Covid-19 positive cases were reported in the country over the past 24 hours, with Selangor still recording the highest daily tally of 401, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the latest development took the total number of infections in Malaysia to 91,969, with 15,294 of them being active cases.

“Of the new cases, two were imported cases who were infected abroad while the remaining 1,151 cases were local transmissions,” he said in a statement, Saturday.

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Kuala Lumpur had the second highest number of cases today with 281, followed by Sabah (199 cases).

“A total of 176 of the reported cases were linked to the prison and Immigration detention depot clusters involving the Jalan Harapan Prison Cluster (96 cases) and Tembok Cluster (80 cases), he said.

Meanwhile, one fatality was recorded today when a 76-year-old local woman, with a history of high blood pressure and dyslipidemia, died in Penang.

That took the death toll in the country to 433, which is 0.47 per cent of the total number of cases.

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Dr Noor Hisham also said that 112 patients were currently being treated in the intensive care unit, with 56 of them intubated.

Meanwhile, the government expects to receive the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer in February next year, said Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

He said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin told the Cabinet this at a recent meeting.

“We expect the first delivery to be in February and it is the initial batch...the supply will continue until the end of 2021. 

“The initial supply will be used to vaccinate the frontliners and vulnerable groups against Covid-19,” Mohamed Azmin, the Gombak Member of Parliament, told reporters after attending a programme in the constituency, Saturday.

Mohamed Azmin said the government was trying to buy the Covid-19 vaccine from several other pharmaceutical companies.

 “The government is making efforts to get a bigger supply of vaccine to meet our needs. The government will take the advice of the Health Ministry regarding the percentage of people who need to be vaccinated,” he added.