Covid-19 deaths (Oct 19): 72 reported fatalities, total at 27,993

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry's Github data repository reported a total of 72 Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Oct 18), bringing the cumulative death toll to 27,993.

Malaysia is the four worst-performing country in Asia in the number of Covid-19 deaths per capita after countries in the Middle East - Iran, Lebanon and Jordan.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 12.5 percent or 9 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Johor recorded the highest number of new deaths at 18, making up 25.0 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Sarawak (13), Kedah (9), Penang (7), Sabah (5), Kelantan (4), Perak (3), Terengganu (3), Kuala Lumpur (3), Malacca (2), Pahang (2), Selangor (2) and Perlis (1).

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

A total of 64 out of the 72 reported deaths or 88.9 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 164 Covid-19 deaths were reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 82, indicating a downtrend.

To date, 1,785 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

A total of 9,680 Covid-19 deaths were reported in September, 7,642 in August, 3,858 in July and 2,380 in June.

As of yesterday, there were 89,173 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 20.6 percent from the 112,379 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 59.3 percent from 219,360.

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

From the 5,434 new cases yesterday, a total of 356 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 239 (67.1 percent) were from workplaces while 45 (12.6 percent) were from community transmissions.

Another 34 (9.6 percent) were from clusters linked to education institutions.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to high-risk groups such as old folks homes (24 - 6.7 percent) and religious events (14 - 3.9 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.