COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 17 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Dec 12), bringing the cumulative death toll to 30,879.

The previous occasion Malaysia's death tally was 17 was nine days ago, which was the lowest since May 10. 

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 937 deaths per 1 million population.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 17.6 percent or 3 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Terengganu recorded the highest number of new deaths at 4, making up 23.5 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

The remaining deaths were in Kelantan (3), Kedah (2), Perak (2), Perlis (2), Penang (2), Malacca (1) and Sabah (1).

No new deaths were reported in Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Sarawak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 16 out of the 17 reported deaths or 94.1 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 44 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 38, indicating a downtrend.

To date, 565 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

As of yesterday, there were 58,852 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 5.1 percent from the 61,999 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 8.4 percent from 64,279.

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

From the 3,490 new cases yesterday, a total of 167 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 76 (45.5 percent) were from workplaces while 42 (25.1 percent) were from education institutions.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to high-risk groups such as old folks homes (41 - 24.6 percent) and community transmissions (8 - 4.8 percent).

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