KOTA KINABALU, Aug 27 — Sabah today registered a record-breaking 41 Covid-19 deaths today, bringing its death toll to 1,042.
The state’s previous record was 28 fatalities on August 12.
Today is also the third-highest national daily number, at 339 deaths nationwide.
Sabah has the fourth highest number of deaths behind Selangor with 5,512, Kuala Lumpur with 1,998 and Johor with 1,812.
Sabah used to top the cumulative death toll in the third quarter of last year after the state election in September last year, which also triggered the current third wave.
Today, Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that there was a marked increase in symptomatic screenings from today’s 3,010 cases, the fourth day in a row its recorded above 3,000 cases.
“Symptomatic screenings increased from 25 per cent to 31.4 per cent or 946 cases but close contact screening cases still accounted for the most at 59.2 per cent or 1782 cases ,” he said.
Today’s total was 477 fewer than yesterday’s 3,487 cases, with the reductions coming from Kinabatangan and Sandakan.
Masidi also said that of the 3,010 cases, 63 per cent are backlogs stretching back to two to over five days. The number of cases is expected to be high for a while as the state continues to clear the backlog.
As of August 26, 56.05 per cent of adults in Sabah have received their first dose of vaccine while 35.44 per cent have completed their vaccination.
