THE Health Ministry reported 346 Covid-related deaths yesterday, taking the death toll to 22,355.

It said 105 of the cases were pronounced dead on arrival. 

According to data from the ministry on the CovidNow website, only one death was dated September 16 and the rest backlog cases that were previously unreported. 

The 345 backlog cases were undated and would be backtraced for the date the victims were pronounced dead. 

The ministry had said that the backlogged reports were due to health frontliners being overwhelmed with work in the past couple of months, which had led to delays in investigation and reporting of deaths. 

Daily death figures could vary from the actual number of deaths that occurred in a day while the backlog was being cleared, said the ministry.

To ease understanding, the ministry is using three indicators to report Covid-19 deaths: total daily reported deaths including backlog cases, deaths that actually took place on the day, and the seven-day average.

The seven-day average for coronavirus deaths yesterday was 107.

Most of the 346 deaths reported yesterday occurred in Selangor, which accounted for 94 of them, followed by Kedah (82) and Johor (59).

Sabah logged 47 deaths, Penang (30), Sarawak (14), Terengganu and Malacca (4 each), and Kelantan, Perak Perlis and Kuala Lumpur (3 each).

No virus fatalities were reported in Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Labuan and Putrajaya. 

Going by the new method of calculation, deaths have dropped significantly in Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Malacca, Penang, Perak, Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, and Kuala Lumpur. 

Yesterday, Malaysia reported 18,815 new Covid-19 cases, taking the active caseload in the country to 227,120. There were 16,939 recoveries. – September 17, 2021.