COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 23 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Dec 28), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,392.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 950 deaths per 1 million population.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, four died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Johor recorded the highest number of new deaths at four.

The remaining deaths were in Terengganu (4), Perak (3), Kelantan (2), Pahang (2), Selangor (2), Kuala Lumpur (2), Kedah (1), Malacca (1), Negeri Sembilan (1) and Sabah (1).

No new deaths were reported in Perlis, Penang, Sarawak, Labuan and Putrajaya.

A total of 21 out of the 23 reported deaths 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 36 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 29, indicating a downtrend.

To date, 1,079 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

A total of 1,612 Covid-19 deaths were reported in November, 2,704 in October, 9,678 in September and 7,641 in August.

As of yesterday, there were 42,357 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 17.0 percent from the 51,026 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 36.3 percent from 66,456.

Cluster-linked infections

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

From the 2,897 new cases yesterday, a total of 51 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 22 (43.1 percent) were from community transmissions while 18 (35.3 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to education institutions (6 - 11.8 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (3 - 5.9 percent) and imported cases (2 - 3.9 percent).

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