KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 — Kelantan reported a near-seven fold increase in new Covid-19 cases in a month, with its current surge nearly tripling a previous peak in mid-January this year.
The east coast state reported 352 average daily infections over the past week of April 16 to 22, which was 6.7 times higher from 52 average infections a day in the week of March 19 to 25.
Kelantan’s daily case tally of 352 average infections is now 2.8 times higher than the previous peak of an average daily 125 infections recorded in the week of January 15 to 21 this year.
Malaysia’s average 2,387 daily new Covid-19 cases in the past week from April 16 to April 22 are still lower than the nation’s late January peak of 4,754 average daily infections, but surpassed the 2,035 average daily case tally recorded seven weeks ago in the week of February 26 to March 4.
With an average of 352 new Covid-19 cases every day between April 16 and April 22, Kelantan reported 18 new cases per 100,000 population daily on average, 2.5 times higher than the nation’s daily incidence rate of 7.3 cases per 100,000 people in that period.
Between January 15 and 21 this year, only two clusters were reported in Kelantan — Pondok Hidayah cluster and Pulau Lima cluster, while the rest of the east coast state’s Covid-19 cases were detected from other screenings and close contact screening.
Following that, between January 22 and February 11, the average daily Covid-19 cases in Kelantan showed a declining trend for three weeks.
Then, for three weeks, Kelantan’s average daily Covid-19 cases rose gradually, peaking at 78 cases daily between February 19 and February 25, and dropping to 28 cases between March 5 and March 11.
Following a gradual increase for four weeks until April 8, Kelantan reported a spike of average Covid-19 cases from 61 daily cases between April 2 and April 8, to 146 daily cases between April 9 and April 15, and to 352 daily cases between April 16 and April 22.
This was an increase of 5.8 times within a fortnight. Over the past three weeks from April 9 to 22, Kelantan reported 13 new clusters, among which 76.9 per cent were educational-related clusters.
Ten of the 13 coronavirus cluster were educational clusters, one community cluster, and two workplace clusters.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) reported that the Rt level in Kelantan as of April 22 was 1.53, the highest compared to infectivity rates in other states and federal territories. An Rt of 1.53 means that one Covid-19 case on average leads to another 1.5 more cases.
All except for one sub-district in Kelantan have reported Covid-19 cases in the past fortnight. A total of 23 sub-districts are in the red zone, 15 in the orange zone, and 27 in the yellow zone.
Over the past month, the average number of daily cases reported in Malaysia increased continuously from 1,216 cases a day between March 26 and April 1, to 2,387 cases between April 16 and April 22.
