KUALA LUMPUR (July 14): Malaysia reported a fresh record high of 11,618 new Covid-19 cases today, up from 11,079 yesterday — marking the second consecutive day that new cases came in above the 11,000-mark.

This pushed the current number of active cases to its highest level of 101,359 since the first coronavirus case was reported in the country in late January last year. This is the first time that actives breached the 100,000 level, as new infections continued to outnumber recoveries — which came in at 6,377 today — for 21 straight days.

The spike in new cases came from the testing of 130,637 individuals in the last 24 hours — the highest number of tests conducted in a single day — as the Health Ministry ramped up screening and close contact tracing in areas under Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO).

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah warned yesterday that new cases are expected to climb further as the highly-infectious Delta variant, which originated from India, has been detected in almost every State in Malaysia.

In his daily Covid-19 statement update today, he said Selangor continued to lead with the highest number of daily infections at 5,051, albeit down from 5,263 yesterday. This was followed by record high cases in Kuala Lumpur (1,749 cases, up from 1,521 previously) and Negeri Sembilan (1,537 cases, up from 1,033).

There were 118 more Covid-19 linked deaths reported across the country, taking total fatalities related to the coronavirus to 6,503.

Of new fatalities, 46 were reported in Selangor, 18 in Kuala Lumpur, 16 in Negeri Sembilan, 13 in Johor, five in Kedah, four each in Sabah and Sarawak, two each in Labuan, Kelantan, Perak, Pahang and Melaka, and one each in Penang and Terengganu.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 patients in intensive care units dropped to 878 from 972 previously, with 432 needing ventilators to breathe.

Total recoveries now stand at 759,705 or 87.6% of cumulative infections, which now stand at 867,567.

Malaysia's basic reproduction number (R-naught or R0) for Covid-19 infections nationwide on July 13 stood at 1.16, up from 1.14 the day before, with Putrajaya having the highest R0 of 1.35.

Terengganu came in second at 1.26, Selangor (1.19), Kedah (1.17), Pahang (1.14) and Kuala Lumpur (1.11).

The R0 or Rt projects the average number of people that each new Covid-19 patient will infect, or what is termed the effective reproduction number. An R0 of less than 1.0 means the infection is not spreading.

The Health Ministry also identified 26 new Covid-19 clusters as of noon today, bringing the number of active clusters to 876.

The latest clusters comprised 15 workplace clusters, seven community clusters and four high risk group clusters.

To date, 3,142 clusters have been detected nationwide, while 2,266 have been declared ended.