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KUALA LUMPUR – The number of new Covid-19 cases recorded in the 28th epidemiological week (ME 28/2022), from July 10 to 16, has increased by 23.4% to 26,355, compared with 21,355 reported in ME 27/2022.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said local Covid-19 cases in ME 28 also jumped by 23.4% to 26,317 cases, from 21,325 cases reported in the previous week, while imported cases increased by 26.6% to 38 cases, compared with 30 cases recorded in the previous week.
“The number of recovered cases in ME 28 has increased by 16.8% to 19,138 cases, from 16,379 cases recorded in ME 27,” he said in a statement today.
According to Dr Noor Hisham, the number of deaths in ME 28 also showed an increase of 2.6% (38 to 39 cases), while the average daily active cases for ME 28 was 38,110, which is an increase of 18.6% compared with the previous week.
He said that from January 25, 2020 (ME 4/2020) to July 16, 2022 (ME 28/2022), cumulative new Covid-19 cases nationwide were at 4,619,045; cumulative recoveries were 4,540,717 and cumulative deaths were 35,848 while cumulative clusters were 7,026, with 12 of them active.
Dr Noor Hisham said that overall, the admission of Covid-19 patients into health facilities, namely public hospitals and Covid-19 Quarantine and Treatment Centres (PKRCs), per 100,000 population has increased by 9% in ME 28 compared with ME 27.
He said that there was a 33% increase in the number of Covid-19 patient admissions to public hospitals per 100,000 population, with category one and two patients rising by 33% while category three, four and five patient admissions also increasing by 33%.
According to Dr Noor Hisham, in terms of the percentage of Covid-19 bed occupancy in ME 28, the use of non-critical beds increased by 2%; Intensive Care Unit beds rose by 3%; and there were no changes in the PKRC bed occupancy rate.
He said that positive Covid-19 cases monitored by the Covid-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) nationwide had shown an improvement, based on a comparison of physical CAC data reported in ME 27/2022 and ME 28/2022.
“The number of patient visits to CAC increased by 23.1%; the number of new Covid-19 cases undergoing home monitoring increased by 41.3% and the number of Covid-19 cases referred by CAC to PKRC and hospitals increased by 18.2%,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said that the trend of Covid-19 daily active cases monitored by virtual CAC at the end of ME 28 increased by 33.8% to 71,326, compared with 53,306 cases reported at the end of ME 27.
On influenza-like-illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance, he said that, as of ME 28, positive ILI sample rates for Covid-19 jumped by 8.5%, from 10.6% in ME 27 to 11.5% in ME 28, and the positive rate of the SARI samples remained at zero in ME 28. – Bernama, July 18, 2022
