COVID-19 | The Health Ministry reported a total of 9 new Covid-19 fatalities yesterday (Jan 18), bringing the cumulative death toll to 31,818.

This is the lowest number of reported deaths in 270 days, since April 23, 2021.

From the newly reported deaths yesterday, none 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 964 deaths per 1 million population, and fourth-worst in Asia after Iran, Lebanon and Jordan – all in the Middle East.

Malacca recorded the highest number of new deaths at 2, making up 22.2 percent of the newly reported fatalities.

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

The remaining deaths were in Kelantan (1), Sabah (1) and Terengganu (1).

No new deaths were reported in Johor, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Perlis, Penang, Sarawak, Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

An average of 24 Covid-19 deaths was reported daily in the last 30 days compared to the seven-day average of 14, indicating a downward trend.

To date, 620 Covid-19 deaths have been reported this month.

A total of 1,174 Covid-19 deaths were reported in December 2021, 1,612 in November 2021, 2,704 in October 2021 and 9,678 in September 2021.

As of yesterday, there were 40,761 active Covid-19 cases. This is an increase of 2.1 percent from the 39,913 active infections a week ago.

Compared to 30 days ago, the number of active cases has fallen by 23.8 percent from 53,484.

Cluster-linked infections

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

From the 3,245 new cases yesterday, a total of 388 of them could be traced to ongoing Covid-19 clusters.

From the cluster-linked cases, 297 (76.5 percent) were from education institutions while 45 (11.6 percent) were from workplaces.

The remaining cases were traced to clusters related to religious events (22 - 5.7 percent), high-risk groups such as old folks homes (17 - 4.4 percent) and community transmissions (7 - 1.8 percent).