Covid-19 deaths (Feb 3): 7 reported fatalities, total at 31,992

COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 7 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Feb 2), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,992.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 28.6 percent or 2 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 969 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

Kelantan recorded the highest number of new deaths at 2, making up 28.6 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

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

The remaining deaths were in Johor (1), Negeri Sembilan (1) and Terengganu (1).

No new deaths were reported in Kedah, Malacca, Perak, Perlis, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 6 out of the 7 reported deaths or 85.7 percent occurred in the last seven days.

The remaining deaths occurred more than a week ago but were only recorded yesterday due to delays in data reporting.

An average of 14 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days, compared to the seven-day average of 9, indicating a downtrend.

As of yesterday, there were 59,685 active Covid-19 cases. This is an increase of 27.6 percent from the 46,788 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has increased by 50.2 percent from 39,736.

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

From the 5,736 new cases yesterday, a total of 547 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 355 (64.9 percent) were from education institutions while 169 (30.9 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to high-risk groups such as old folks homes (12 - 2.2 percent), community transmissions (8 - 1.5 percent) and detention centres (3 - 0.5 percent).

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