Covid-19 deaths (Dec 15): 48 reported fatalities, total at 30,956

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 48 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Dec 14), bringing the cumulative death toll to 30,956.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 939 deaths per 1 million population.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 25 percent or 12 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Penang recorded the highest number of new deaths at 8, making up 16.7 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Kelantan (6), Sabah (6), Terengganu (6), Selangor (5), Perak (4), Johor (3), Negeri Sembilan (3), Kedah (2), Kuala Lumpur (2), Pahang (1), Sarawak (1) and Labuan (1).

No new deaths were reported in Malacca, Perlis and Putrajaya.

A total of 44 out of the 48 reported deaths or 91.7 percent happened in the last seven days.

The remaining deaths happened more than a week ago but were only recorded yesterday due to delays in data reporting.

An average of 43 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 34, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 642 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

As of yesterday, there were 57,674 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 4.5 percent from the 60,411 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 11.8 percent from 65,419.

Workplace infections

The Health Ministry's post-midnight update also provided further insights into the new Covid-19 infections yesterday.

From the 4,097 new cases yesterday, a total of 152 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 123 (80.9 percent) were from workplaces while 17 (11.2 percent) were from high-risk groups such as old folks homes.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to and education institutions (12 - 7.9 percent).