KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported 11,618 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday (Jul 14), yet another record as the country battles to stem a sharp increase in new infections.
This comes one day after its previous record of 11,079 new cases on Tuesday and is Malaysia's fourth record in less than a week.
More than half of the new cases were once again from the Klang Valley area, with 5,051 in Selangor and 1,749 in Kuala Lumpur. There were also 1,537 new infections in neighbouring state Negeri Sembilan.
Melaka and Johor registered 526 and 396 cases each while Penang recorded 210 infections.
There were also 118 more fatalities, taking the national death toll to 6,503. Thirteen of them were classified as "brought in dead" as they did not die in hospital.
A total of 878 patients are in the intensive care unit, with 432 requiring respiratory support.
Health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah on Tuesday said the rise in new cases was due to increased COVID-19 testing.
More than 131,700 COVID-19 tests were carried out on Jul 13, the highest number yet in the past two weeks.
Dr Noor Hisham also emphasised that vaccination was the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and urged more Malaysians to get their jabs.
Malaysia entered its third nationwide lockdown on Jun 1, shortly after it breached the 9,000 mark for new cases for the first time on May 29.
Numbers reached record levels again on Jul 9 and Jul 10, with more than 9,100 cases on each day before it breached the 11,000 mark for the first time on Tuesday.
As of Wednesday, Malaysia has reported a total of 867,567 COVID-19 cases, of which 101,359 are currently active or infectious.