Covid-19 deaths (Dec 26): 25 reported fatalities, total at 31,315

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 25 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Dec 25), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,315.

The daily reported deaths have been above 20 for six consecutive days. Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 950 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 16 percent or four died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Selangor recorded the highest number of new deaths at six, making up 24 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Perak (4), Johor (3), Penang (3), Kelantan (2), Pahang (2), Kuala Lumpur (2), Negeri Sembilan (1), Perlis (1) and Terengganu (1).

No new deaths were reported in Kedah, Malacca, Sabah, Sarawak, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 23 out of the 25 reported deaths or 92 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 37 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 35, indicating a downtrend.

To date, 1,002 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 7,641 in August.

As of yesterday, there were 45,591 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 15.7 percent from the 54,095 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 33.7 percent from 68,756.

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

From the 3,160 new cases yesterday, a total of 71 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 27 (38 percent) were from workplaces while 17 (23.9 percent) were from community transmissions.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to education institutions (16-22.5 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (10-14.1 percent) and religious events (1-1.4 percent).

The Health Ministry uploads the latest details of the Covid-19 pandemic after midnight on Github as part of its open data initiative.