He was referring to the record high of 11,079 Covid-19 cases and 125 deaths reported by the health ministry in the past 24 hours.

According to Noor Hisham, the increase in cases is in line with the increase of screenings between July 6 to July 12, where a total of 825,373 tests were conducted using both the RT-PCR and RTK-Antigen methods.

He noted that a significant difference can be seen where the number of tests in the previous week (June 29 to July 5) was only 624,645.

“An increase of 32% can be seen between these periods,” he said in a statement today.

The highest number of daily tests over the past two weeks was also reported on July 12 with 120,448, an increase of 54.6% from the overall number of daily tests.

He expected cases to further rise over the next week or so, citing the Delta variant which is more infectious and which spreads faster as a major factor.

To date, a total of 293 cases of Covid-19 variants of concern (VOC) and variants of interest (VOI) were detected.

Of the total, 273 cases were VOC while 20 cases were listed as VOI.

The total VOC cases reported were 195 cases of the Beta variant (B.1.351), 67 cases of the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), 11 cases of the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7), while the VOI cases registered were 13 cases of the Theta variant (P. 3), three cases of the Eta variant (B.1.525) and four cases of the Kappa variant (B.1.617.1).

Sarawak reported the highest number of cases involving these variants with 57. This was followed by Selangor (55), Kelantan (24), Kuala Lumpur (16), Kedah (15), Johor (15), Perak (13), Melaka (12), Pahang (12), Terengganu (10), Sabah (10), Labuan (10), Negeri Sembilan (8), Perlis (6), Penang (6), and Putrajaya (5).

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