THE Health Ministry reported 121 Covid-19-related deaths as of midnight yesterday, taking the coronavirus toll in the country to 26,456.

It was the fifth straight day daily deaths had dipped. 

According to the ministry’s GitHub raw data repository, 28 cases were classified dead on arrival (DOA), taking the number of deaths in this category to 5,307.

Only two of the 121 deaths occurred yesterday. The remaining 119 were backlog cases that were previously unreported. These would be backtracked to the days the deaths actually took place.

The daily death figure is the sum total of the deaths that occur on the day plus backlog reports of deaths, or deaths that have just been confirmed by health authorities to be due to Covid-19 upon completion of investigation. 

One of patients who died was fully vaccinated, in Johor.

Sarawak reported the most number of deaths yesterday with 25, eight of which were DOA.

Johor and Sabah were second with 17 each.  

Deaths in Selangor dropped for the second straight day as the most populous state reported 15 deaths. Two deaths were DOA cases.

Other states reporting deaths were Kelantan with 15, Perak and Kuala Lumpur (7 each), Kedah and Penang (6 each), Perlis (3), Terengganu (2) and Pahang (1).

Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Labuan and Putrajaya did not report any deaths related to coronavirus.

Besides the eight DOA cases in Sarawak and two in Selangor, Sabah had eight, Kelantan (5), Kuala Lumpur (3), Penang and Johor (1 each).

According to the ministry’s CovidNow website, the national average deaths per 100,000 population is 5.0. Penang has the highest with 12.2 deaths per population of 100,000.

The seven-day average for deaths was 83 cases.

The active Covid-19 caseload dropped to 160,413 after Malaysia reported 15,891 recoveries against 11,889 new cases.

On the breakdown of the active cases, 132,642 patients or 82.7% are under home quarantine, 18,216 (11.4%) at low-risk quarantine centres and 8,655 (5.4%) in hospitals.

Of those admitted in hospitals, 900 are in intensive care, 488 of them on ventilator support. – October 2, 2021.