THE Health Ministry reported 301 new Covid-19 deaths as of midnight yesterday, taking the nationwide toll to 23,744.

According to data on the CovidNow website, only eight of the cases died yesterday. The remaining 293 deaths were backlog cases that were previously unreported.

The backlog deaths are undated and will be backtracked to the actual date the victims were pronounced dead.

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

The two indicators for the calculation of daily Covid deaths are the day’s reported deaths plus backlog cases and the seven-day average.

The seven-day average for Covid deaths yesterday was 108.

Ninety-two of the cases were declared dead on arrival. 

Selangor accounted for 130 of the total deaths, followed by Johor (52), Kelantan (23), Penang (22), Sabah (19), Perak (15), Kuala Lumpur (13), Sarawak (8), Kedah (6) Pahang (4), Terengganu (4), Malacca (3), Negri Sembilan (1) and Perlis (1). 

No deaths were reported in Labuan and Putrajaya.

Yesterday, the number of new infections dropped for the fifth day in a row, at 14,345 cases, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said. 

The number was the lowest in almost two months. The last time the country recorded fewer daily cases was on July 22 with 13,034.  – September 21, 2021.