THE Health Ministry reported 74 Covid-19 related deaths – all backlogs – as of midnight yesterday, taking the virus toll to 27,265.

It was the lowest reported number of coronavirus deaths since July 4, which had 63 fatalities.

According to the ministry’s GitHub raw data repository, of the 74 deaths reported, none occurred yesterday. All were backlog cases of death that were previously unreported. These would be backdated to the actual day they occurred.

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

Of yesterday’s 74 backlog cases, 27 were declared as dead on arrival (DOA), taking the total deaths in this category to 5,500.

None of the dead were vaccinated.

Selangor accounted for the most deaths at 22 and it also reported the most DOA cases at 13.

Other states and territories reporting deaths were Sarawak with 14, Sabah (11), Johor (10), Kelantan (5), Perak (4), Malacca and Kuala Lumpur (2 each), and Kedah, Negri Sembilan, Perlis and Terengganu (1 each).

Sabah and Sarawak each recorded five DOA cases and Kedah, Kelantan, Malacca and Terengganu, one each.

No coronavirus-linked fatalities were reported in Pahang, Penang, Labuan and Putrajaya.

The CovidNow website showed a national average of 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people in the last six month. Among the states and federal territories, Selangor had the highest average of 13.9 deaths per population of 100,000.

The active Covid-19 caseload dropped further to 120,246 after 14,422 recoveries were reported against 8,743 new cases.

Of the new infected cases, 95,521, or 79.4%, were in home quarantine, 16,249 (13.5%) were in low-risk quarantine centres, and 7,708 (6.4%) in hospitals.

Of those in hospitals, 768 were in intensive care, 418 of whom required respiratory support. – October 10, 2021.