Covid-19 deaths (Sept 29): 240 reported fatalities, total now 25,935

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry's Github data repository reported a total of 240 Covid-19 fatalities yesterday, bringing the cumulative death toll to 25,935.

The daily reported deaths have been above 200 for five consecutive days and the cumulative death toll is likely to breach the 26,000 mark tomorrow.

September is Malaysia's deadliest month since the start of the pandemic, underscoring the country's position as the worst in Asia in the number of Covid-19 deaths per capita.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 29.6 percent or 71 died before they could be brought to the hospital for treatment.

Johor recorded the highest number of new deaths at 47, making up 19.6 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Selangor (41), Sabah (38), Kuala Lumpur (21), Kedah (20), Penang (18), Sarawak (15), Kelantan (14), Perak (10), Terengganu (7), Malacca (4), Pahang (4) and Perlis (1).

No new deaths were reported in Negeri Sembilan, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 150 out of the 240 reported deaths, or 62.5 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 328 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 265, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 9,280 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month. A total of 7,642 Covid-19 deaths were reported in August, 3,858 in July, 2,380 in June and 1,302 in May.

As of yesterday, there were 174,492 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 15.5 percent from the 206,473 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 35 percent from 268,000.

Cluster-linked infections

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

From the 11,332 new cases yesterday, a total of 715 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 355 (49.7 percent) were from workplaces, while 298 (41.7 percent) were from community transmissions.

Another 56 (7.8 percent) were from clusters linked to detention centres.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to religious events (3 or 0.4 percent) and education institutions (3 or 0.4 percent).

Previously, the Health Ministry released deaths statistics together with the number of new Covid-19 cases in the evening. This had since changed.

Deaths statistics are now released after midnight along with other more detailed data. Malaysiakini reports them in the morning.