INTERACTIVE: Malaysia weekly Covid-19 cases rise by 44%, deaths up 26%

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s Covid-19 outbreak grew by 44% in the seven-day period from July 11-17 compared to the week before, but vaccinations continued to speed up to new highs.

* The number of deaths for the week rose by 26% and the number of people who died in a single day hit a record of 138 on July 17.

* July 15 saw the biggest ever number of new Covid-19 infections with 13,215 cases recorded.

* There were 78,660 new cases recorded from July 11-17, the biggest number of weekly cases since the start of the pandemic.

* Only Labuan saw a drop in cases compared to the week before. All other states and federal territories recorded increases on a weekly basis.

* The country’s vaccination rate continued to climb. The number of jabs dispensed grew by 23.5% compared to the previous week, and reached a new record on July 15, with 460,123 doses administered on that date.

States and federal territories:

* Terengganu, Putrajaya, and Penang had the biggest weekly percentage increase in cases.

Infectivity rate:

One of the things health authorities and experts measure is the infection’s reproduction number, called R0 (pronounced as “R naught”).

The R value refers to the number of people that a person who has the coronavirus will infect.

If the R value is 1 for example, it means that on average, one infected person will spread Covid-19 to one other individual.

An R value higher than 1 means that the number of cases will increase.

If the R value falls – especially below 1 – the disease will eventually stop spreading as not enough new people are being infected to sustain the outbreak.

Malaysia’s R value went up from early March but fell since May 23 to below 1 on June 6. It went up to 1 again on June 28 and has since been on an upward trend.

Vaccinations:

* As at 11.59pm July 17, 9,570,974 people or 40.9% of the country’s adult population have received their first dose.

* From this total, 4,431,350 people (18.9% of the country’s adult population) have received their second dose.

* Penang, Sabah and Kedah had the biggest increase in the number of vaccine doses for the week.

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