COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 28 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 3), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,560.

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, 14.3 percent or four died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Penang recorded the highest number of new deaths at six.

The remaining deaths were in Selangor (5), Perak (4), Kelantan (3), Johor (2), Pahang (2), Sabah (2), Terengganu (2), Kedah (1) and Sarawak (1).

No new deaths were reported in Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Perlis, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

 All of the reported deaths occured in the last seven days.

As of yesterday, there were 39,733 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 7.4 percent from the 42,917 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 36.6 percent from 62,671.

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

From the 2,690 new cases yesterday, a total of 55 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 28 (50.9 percent) were from workplaces while 15 (27.3 percent) were from imported.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to education institutions (9 - 16.4 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (2 - 3.6 percent) and community transmissions (1 - 1.8 percent).

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