KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 infections hit a new high for the second consecutive day as it recorded 15,902 cases on Saturday (July 24), while nearing the tail end of a third month in lockdown.

Saturday’s figures were slightly higher than the 15,573 cases reported on Friday, which was also a record high.

The country is now presumably one day away from crossing the one million mark for cumulative Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began last year, with a large portion of infections and deaths having been recorded during this year’s devastating third wave. Malaysia has more than 990,000 cases of Covid-19 now.

Malaysia’s most populous region, Klang Valley, continued to account for a large bulk of the cases. Nearly 10,000 cases were recorded in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur- which make up Klang Valley – or around 65 per cent of all cases reported on Saturday.

Almost all of Malaysia has been in a lockdown since May 12 this year, with a majority of businesses now shuttered for a third month.

However, daily infection numbers and deaths have only gone up during the lockdown, which the authorities have blamed on the most transmissible variants of concern, especially the Delta variant.

The country is now under a mix of phase one and phase two of its four-stage Covid-19 exit plan, which involves lockdowns of varying degrees.

Phase three, which will see a gradual reopening of the economy, is not scheduled until the end of August.

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