Covid-19 deaths (Dec 18): 18 reported fatalities, total at 31,044

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 18 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Dec 17), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,044.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 942 deaths per 1 million population.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 5.6 percent or 1 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Perak recorded the highest number of new deaths at 7, making up 38.9 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Selangor (3), Kelantan (2), Negeri Sembilan (2), Sabah (2), Johor (1) and Perlis (1).

No new deaths were reported in Kedah, Malacca, Pahang, Penang, Sarawak, Terengganu, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 17 out of the 18 reported deaths or 94.4 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 40 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 30, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 730 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

A total of 1,612 Covid-19 deaths were reported in November, 2,704 in October, 9,678 in September and 7,642 in August.

As of yesterday, there were 55,475 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 8.9 percent from the 60,873 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 16.9 percent from 66,795.

Cluster-linked infections

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

From the 4,362 new cases yesterday, a total of 208 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 101 (48.6 percent) were from workplaces while 46 (22.1 percent) were from high-risk groups such as old folks homes.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to community transmissions (31 - 14.9 percent) and education institutions (30 - 14.4 percent).