James Kon
Brunei Darussalam registered a new record high number of new COVID-19 cases at 3,969, bringing the total active cases to 27,841, said Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar in a press conference yesterday. He added that with the latest cases, the national tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 55,485.
Permanent Secretary (Professional) at the Ministry of Health (MoH) Dr Ang Swee Hui was also present.
Meanwhile, the country also reported two COVID-19 related deaths, raising the tally to 65, while the total fatalities in COVID-19 cases including non-COVID-19 related deaths have reached 117.
On the new cases, the minister said, “A total of 2,974 were from antigen rapid test (ART) kit results uploaded to the MoH’s portal, while 995 were from 3,272 RT-PCR laboratory tests performed in the past 24 hours.”
Meanwhile, eight cases are in Category 4, requiring oxygen assistance and are under close monitoring, while three cases are in Category 5, requiring artificial ventilation assistance and are treated at the intensive care unit, Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham said.
The minister also shared that the bed occupancy rate in isolation centres nationwide is 8.5 per cent, with 286 active cases in isolation centres. A total of 27,555 positive cases are currently undergoing home self-isolation.
As of Friday, the minister said 53.4 per cent of the populace had received three doses of COVID-19 vaccine, while more than 94 per cent had received at least one dose under the National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.
Following a recent press statement on an update to be implemented in the process of monitoring COVID-19 patients and close contacts through the BruHealth application, Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham announced that the update has been activated with a feature called ‘ART’.
He advised the public to report their ART results to the BruHealth app as the ART report website has been discontinued. The public is also reminded to update their health status in the BruHealth app daily to help the ministry in monitoring their health.
Meanwhile, no violations were detected during the movement restriction order from midnight to 4am yesterday.
