It said the remainder were deaths attributed to a backlog in cases.

During a media briefing on the ministry’s new Covidnow database, representatives from the ministry said the number of “reported deaths” included all deaths confirmed on that day to be due to Covid-19, even if they had occurred before that date.

The same applied to “brought in dead” cases.

They said a more accurate picture of the situation could be gleaned from the “actual deaths” figure, represented by the black line on the Covidnow graph, which captures the number of deaths confirmed to have occurred on a particular day.

However, they stressed that this number was dynamic and subject to change over time as some deaths would be backlogged once an audit had been performed to confirm a death was actually due to Covid-19.

For example, a death reported today may be added to the “actual death” tally for Sept 8, if they had died that day.

It was earlier reported that some discrepancies would occur between the reported and actual deaths for about a week until the backlog was cleared up.

A number of causes have been attributed for the discrepancies in figures.

Since the health data has to be submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO), the health ministry needs to ensure its figures are correct, and this requires close scrutiny.

While some cases are easy to classify, other deaths may require additional tests for confirmation and this may take some time, the health ministry officials said.

For example, a patient who dies while Covid-19 positive may not have died strictly because of the disease, which according to WHO guidelines is categorised as a “death with Covid-19” rather than a “death due to Covid-19”.

In addition, states that were overwhelmed by a surge in cases may not be capable of reporting or confirming deaths in real time. This was particularly true of hospitals that have been overstretched in resources.