KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 3): Malaysia Covid-19-related deaths continued to decline as 109 fatalities were reported on Saturday (Oct 2), the third consecutive day the daily figure stayed below the 200 mark, dropping further from 121 the day before.

The latest reported deaths brought cumulative Covid-19-linked fatalities in the country to 26,565, according to the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) COVIDNOW website.

Among the 109 deaths, 33 were brought-in-dead (BID) cases, meaning Covid-19 patients who passed away before receiving medical treatment. To date, total BID cases in the nation stood at 5,340. 

Penang led with the most reported fatalities on Saturday with 18 deaths, followed by Sabah and Selangor (13 respectively), Johor (11) and Perak (10). The rest of the states and federal territories including Kuala Lumpur all logged single-digit deaths, except for Labuan and Putrajaya which reported zero fatalities. 

Meanwhile, the nation’s seven-day average number of deaths linked to the coronavirus slipped to 75 on Saturday, from 83 on Friday.

“Reporting of deaths is backdated, particularly to include deaths where time is needed to ascertain the cause of death.

“Therefore, trends should be observed from the series based on the date of death (actual deaths),” the ministry said without specifying the actual daily number of Covid-19-related fatalities that occurred on Saturday.

In terms of Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 people, Penang continued to head the list with 12.3 fatalities for every 100,000 individuals in the state, followed by Perlis (8.6), Johor (7.7) and Sabah (5.8). The national average stood at 4.7 for every 100,000 persons, according to the website.

Malaysia reported 10,915 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from 11,889 on Friday, raising the country’s cumulative infections to 2,268,499. The number of new cases which dropped below the 11,000 mark is also the lowest since July 18 this year, when 10,710 infections were logged.

The current number of active cases currently stood at 155,823 cases. In terms of the breakdown of active cases, home quarantine topped the list with 128,350 infections (82.4%), followed by those at Covid-19 Low-Risk Quarantine and Treatment Centres (18,088 or 11.6%), hospitalised (8,495 or 5.5%) and in the intensive care unit (ICU), both unventilated (405 or 0.3%) and ventilated (485 or 0.3%).