Covid-19 deaths (Jan 20): 13 reported fatalities, surge in school clusters

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 13 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 19), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,831.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, three died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

The new deaths were in Penang (2), Sabah (2), Kuala Lumpur (2), Johor (1), Kedah (1), Kelantan (1), Malacca (1), Negeri Sembilan (1), Perlis (1) and Selangor (1).

No new deaths were reported in Pahang, Perak, Sarawak, Terengganu, Labuan and Putrajaya.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 964 deaths per 1 million population.

A total of 11 out of the 13 reported deaths or 84.6 percent happened in the last seven days.

An average of 23 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 13, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 633 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

Last year, a total of 1,174 Covid-19 deaths were reported in December, 1,612 in November, 2,704 in October and 9,678 in September.

As of yesterday, there were 41,129 active Covid-19 cases. This is an increase of 3.1 percent from the 39,896 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 21.2 percent from 52,220.

Cluster-linked infections

From the 3,229 new cases yesterday, a total of 457 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 415 (90.8 percent) were from education institutions while 40 (8.8 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to religious events (1 - 0.2 percent) and high-risk groups such as old folks homes (1 - 0.2 percent).

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