COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 31 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 4), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,591.

Malaysia has the highest number of deaths per capita in the Asean and East Asian regions with 958 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, 29 percent or 9 died before they could receive treatment at a hospital.

Selangor recorded the highest number of new deaths at 9 (29 percent) of the newly reported fatalities.

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

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

A total of 26 out of the 31 reported deaths or 83.9 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 33 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 28, indicating a downward trend.

As of yesterday, there were 39,682 active Covid-19 cases. This is a reduction of 6.3 percent from the 42,357 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 36 percent from 62,001.

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

From the 2,842 new cases yesterday, a total of 33 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 16 (48.5 percent) were from education institutions while 9 (27.3 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to imported (4 - 12.1 percent), religious events (2 - 6.1 percent), community transmissions (1 - 3 percent) and high-risk groups such as old folks homes (1 - 3percent).