KUALA LUMPUR, April 19 — Covid-19 cases in Malaysia requiring intensive care increased by 11 per cent last week compared to the previous week, Health Minister Dr Adham Baba said today.
The health minister, during the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) weekly press conference earlier this afternoon, said the number of Covid-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) increased from 185 cases in the 14th epidemiological week of the year (April 4 to April 10) to 205 cases in the 15th epidemiological week between April 11 and April 17.
“205 average ICU cases for Week 15 with 11 per cent increase of ICU cases compared to week 14,” Dr Adham said.
However, the average number of ICU cases that required ventilation dropped 1.1 per cent in the 15th epidemiological week of the year compared to Week 14.
Meanwhile, new Covid-19 cases reported in Week 15 increased by 45 per cent compared to Week 14. Malaysia reported 13,742 coronavirus infections from April 11 to 17 (Week 15), an addition of 4,235 cases from the 9,507 new coronavirus infections reported in Week 14 (April 4 to 10).
Malaysia averaged 1,963 new Covid-19 cases a day last week.
The health minister also said that Malaysia had an average of 17,096 active Covid-19 cases per day last week.
“Increase of active cases has been observed for the past three weeks since Week 12,” the health minister added.
The average number of Covid-19 deaths reported last week from April 11 to 17 was seven deaths per day, 49 deaths in total, which was 3.71 per cent higher than the 35 reported fatalities in Week 14.
Dr Adham also reported that Malaysia’s Covid-19 tests increased by 11.4 per cent from Week 14 to Week 15, as 382,267 tests were conducted in Week 15, an average of 54,609 tests per day.
However, the test positivity rate for Week 15 increased from 2.8 per cent in Week 14 to 3.6 per cent in Week 15. The positive rate is the share of tests that are positive.
Dr Adham also pointed out that the infectivity rate (Rt) in Malaysia has been continuously above one since April 3, which indicates potential continued transmission of Covid-19. Dr Adham said that as of April 17, the Rt level in Malaysia was 1.19.
An infectivity rate above one indicates that the epidemic is growing.
