Covid-19 deaths (Jan 31): 8 reported fatalities, total at 31,965

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 8 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 30), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,965.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 12.5 percent or one died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 968 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

Perak recorded the highest number of new deaths at three, making up 37.5 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

Other states with a significant number of newly reported deaths include Johor (2).

The remaining deaths were in Malacca (1), Pahang (1) and Terengganu (1).

No new deaths were reported in Kedah, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Perlis, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

All of the 8 reported deaths occurred in the last seven days.

An average of 16 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 10, indicating a downtrend.

To date, 767 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

A total of 1,174 Covid-19 deaths were reported in December 2021, 1,612 in November 2021, 2,704 in October 2021 and 9,678 in September 2021.

As of yesterday, there were 53,248 active Covid-19 cases. This is an increase of 18 percent from the 45,120 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has increased by 29.2 percent from 41,221.

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

From the 4,915 new cases yesterday, a total of 530 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 382 (72.1 percent) were from education institutions while 110 (20.8 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to detention centres (17 - 3.2 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (14 - 2.6 percent) and community transmissions (7 - 1.3 percent).

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