PETALING JAYA: The number of new Covid-19 cases increased by 18% last week to 1,848 from 1,556 recorded the week before, says health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
In his update for the week ending March 18, Noor Hisham said the number of Covid-19 patients admitted to public hospitals under Category 1 to 5 increased by 20% per 100,000 from the preceding week.
He said occupancy for non-critical beds increased by 2% while ICU bed occupancy increased by 1%.
Active cases declined slightly during the week to 9,481 from 9,657 the previous week.
“Recoveries dropped by 13.7% from 1,423 cases to 1,288 cases,” Noor Hisham said.
“The number of deaths rose to five, a 150% increase from three the week before, bringing the cumulative figure for fatalities to 36,972.”
He said a total of 5,047,040 Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the country since January 2020.