KOTA KINABALU – The Health Ministry should be more transparent when presenting its Covid-19 data to avoid making room for political manipulation, said Warisan president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal.
He expressed his fear that the government may use the withheld information to paint a false picture of the Covid-19 situation in the country.
“On September 1, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin gave his assurance that the ministry would be transparent when providing Covid-19 data.
“But now data released to the public are getting more confusing and unclear, as it was before. “Over the last couple of weeks, detailed infographics have no longer been issued via the ministry’s social media channels.
“Instead, the details are now shared to the CovidNow and Github websites. At the same time, Github requires login registration to obtain more details,” he said in a statement here today.
The Semporna MP said the lack of accurate and transparent information will generate the perception that the government may politicise the situation to say that the Covid-19 pandemic is under control when it is not.
For instance, the Health Ministry issued a directive for Covid-19 patients to undergo home surveillance in July at the same time it released details that health facilities’ occupancy was decreasing, he added.
“The hospitals became less busy, the intensive care units were no longer full. But the data does not reflect the real situation.
“Instead, the number of brought-in-dead (BID) cases has increased over the past two months.”
On September 11, 83.3% of the 239,351 of the cases were undergoing home surveillance but the number of the deaths stood at 592 (including backlogged cases), with 88 BID cases.
“These data showed that pandemic management was not done properly and the people are being burdened to treat themselves,” said Shafie, adding that higher BID numbers may be caused by patients being denied proper healthcare from the government.
He said the government must deal with the problem now before it worsens when the pandemic enters the endemic phase. – The Vibes, September 14, 2021
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