Kota Kinabalu: Sabah’s Covid-19 situation is stabilising with the State’s infectivity rate (RT) dropping to 1.0 amid 2,236 new cases recorded on Wednesday, said Sabah’s Covid-19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.
“The State Health Department expects the caseload in the next few days to hover around the 2,000 mark. It will either increase or dip marginally,” he said in a statement, Wednesday.
About a month ago, Sabah’s infectivity rate was 1.54, which was higher than the national average of 1.32.
Masidi encouraged students and staff involved in the 2021 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination, which commenced Wednesday, to abide by the standard operating procedures (SOPs).
He said 24 deaths were recorded on Wednesday, with Penampang topping the list with seven deaths, followed by four in Kota Kinabalu, three in Sandakan, two each in Kudat and Ranau and one each in Kuala Penyu, Telupid, Kinabatangan, Tawau, Nabawan and Keningau. No new clusters were identified, while the Jalan Kiulu Cluster in Tuaran officially ended on Wednesday. There are 41 active clusters in Sabah to date.
Of the caseload, 66.14 per cent were sporadic infections while 24.87 per cent were close contacts.
“A total of 301 cases involved children aged below 11, of which 168 were children below five,” said Masidi.
He said Kota Kinabalu topped the list with 781 cases, followed by Tuaran (170), Penampang (138), Kota Belud (113), Papar (110), Keningau (108), Tawau (103) and Beaufort (97).
The majority of cases are mild infections, with 2,217 out of 2,236 cases being category one and two infections, which is 99.16 per cent.
“Eight cases are in category three, eight in category four and three in category five. Even though cases in category four and five are below one per cent, 95 per cent of patients in these categories have not gotten their booster shots,” said Masidi.
Some 4,297 Covid-19 patients have been discharged from the hospital, while 1,596 patients are currently receiving treatment at hospitals, low risk quarantine and treatment centres (PKRCs), prisons/temporary detention centres and private facilities.
On Sabah’s immunisation programme, Masidi said 17,337 individuals were vaccinated on March 1, of which 14,315 were adults, while 91 were teenagers and 2,931 were children.
As of March 1, he said a total of 2,413,599 individuals have completed both doses, of which 77.3 per cent were adults, while 2,509,439 have gotten their first dose, of which 78.02 per cent were adults.
Masidi added that a total of 338,962 teenagers have received their first dose, while 313,699 have completed both doses, which is 73.6 per cent of the teenage population. A total of 51,049 children have received their first dose.
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