Covid-19 (March 17): 27,004 new cases, 86 deaths

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry said 27,004 new daily Covid-19 cases was reported yesterday, bringing the total cumulative cases to 3,927,437.

Active cases are on a seven-day downtrend and stood at 296,800.

New cases according to states are as follows:

Selangor (7,558)
Kuala Lumpur (3,266)
Penang (2,315)
Johor (1,990)
Kedah (1,916)
Negeri Sembilan (1,882)
Perak (1,561)
Sarawak (1,484)
Pahang (1,434)
Kelantan (863)
Sabah (769)
Terengganu (764)
Malacca (750)
Perlis (171)
Putrajaya (150)
Labuan (131)

Another 86 deaths attributed to Covid-19 was reported yesterday, of which 35 was declared as 'brought in dead'.

Over the past week, an average of 88.3 people were reported to have died of Covid-19, while the average for the past 30 days was 66.8, indicating that Covid-19 deaths are on the uptrend.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, a total of 34,185 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19.

There has been 1,436 reported Covid-19 deaths this month - double the number of deaths last month and nearly three times more than the deaths reported in January.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 997 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

The highest number of deaths was reported in Perak (16) followed by Selangor (14), Kedah (10), Malacca (8), Johor (7), Kelantan (6), Penang (6), Sabah (6), Terengganu (6), Negeri Sembilan (4), Pahang (2) and Kuala Lumpur (1).

There are 7,856 Covid-19 patients who are hospitalised of which 373 are in intensive care.

According to health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday, utilisation of critical care beds for Covid-19 patients is 100 percent in Putrajaya and below 80 percent in other territories or states.