Covid-19 (Feb 24): Record 31,199 cases, 55 deaths is highest this year

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry yesterday reported 31,199 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the cumulative infections to 3,305,157.

The fresh infections yesterday make up a new record high since tracking began on Jan 25, 2020. The previous record high was 28,825 cases on Feb 19, 2022.

Health authorities also recorded 55 new fatalities yesterday, putting the death toll at 32,488.

The latest deaths are the highest since Dec 21 last year when 57 fatalities were recorded.

Selangor recorded the highest number of new deaths at 10, making up 18.2 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Sabah (9), Johor (8), Perak (7), Kedah (4), Malacca (4), Pahang (4), Penang (3), Kuala Lumpur (3), Kelantan (1), Negeri Sembilan (1) and Perlis (1).

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

An average of 20 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 41, indicating an uptrend.

To date, 885 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month, surpassing January.

A total of 780 Covid-19 deaths were reported in January, 1,174 in last December, 1,612 in last November and 2,704 in last October.

The active cases increased by 10,800 to 277,829. In the last two weeks, the number of active infections climbed from 94,450 to 277,829, an increase of 194.15 percent.

From the 31,199 new cases yesterday, a total of 627 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 504 (80.4 percent) were from education institutions while 72 (11.5 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to detention centres (38 - 6.1 percent) and high-risk groups such as old folks homes (13 - 2.1 percent).

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