PETALING JAYA: It was a day when old records were broken and new ones set.

A total of 701 patients were discharged as of noon on Saturday, a new record for the number of people to have recovered from Covid-19 in a single day.

But the good news was dampened by the runaway increase to 871 new cases in the same period, the highest single day rise since the pandemic began in March.

Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pix) told a “live” media conference yesterday that the national tally of Covid-19 infections now stands at 20,498 and out of that, 7,049 are active cases.

Of the 871 new cases, 866 were locally transmitted infections. Only five are imported ones.

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Sabah continues to lead, with 702 new cases, and Selangor a distant second with 77. Penang came in third with 45 cases while Perak was next with 10.

Labuan, Kedah, Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak, Negri Sembilan, Trengganu, Johor and Malacca recorded fewer than 10 cases each.

Noor Hisham said 86 patients are still in intensive care, with 28 requiring ventilator assistance.

There were seven fatalities, bringing the death toll to 187. They comprised four men and three women aged 41 to 70. Three of them had underlying medical problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.

One new cluster each were also reported in Labuan, Penang, Selangor and Sabah.

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Noor Hisham said the clusters were in Bah Layangan (Labuan), Alma (Penang), Auto (Selangor) and Kepayan Prison (Sabah).

Active prison clusters contributed a total of 97 cases yesterday, with eight at the Alor Star Prison in Tembok, 22 at the Penang Remand Prison, 18 at Seberang Prai Prison and 49 at Kepayan Prison in Sabah.

Existing clusters that have reported high numbers of new cases were Tujuh Serangkai with 25, Ramai-Ramai with 17 and Tanamera with 13.

A total of 27 other clusters recorded fewer than 10 new cases each. These included clusters in Sabah, Selangor, Malacca, Terengganu, Sarawak, Perak, Labuan, Penang, Kedah and Kuala Lumpur.

On the bright side, Noor Hisham said the Health Ministry has successfully reduced Malaysia’s rate of infection (R0) despite the spikes in positive cases.

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The R0 value during the beginning of the third wave on Sept 20 was 2.2, but within four weeks, it has dropped to 1.5.

“If the infection rate is maintained at 2.2, the number of positive cases may exceed 1,000 daily. This shows the efforts in combating the virus are effective but to lower the rate further, people’s cooperation is needed.”