New death reporting method to reflect real-time Covid situation

 

The Health Ministry will overhaul how it reports Covid-19 deaths so that the numbers will be able to reflect the situation in real-time.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin explained this evening that the existing method caused up to “weeks” of delay between when a death happened and when it was reported to the public.

He displayed a series of graphs that showed a contrast between the two dates.

The biggest difference was seen in Selangor where, despite the fact that deaths were nosediving, the reporting mechanism reflected rising deaths.

To remedy this, Khairy said the ministry will now report a Covid-19 death on the same day it happened before performing analysis.

“You see in the past reporting process - we had to wait after the post-mortem (and clinical evaluation) plus data collection before we could declare a death as a Covid-19 death.

“Sometimes this took days and even weeks. So the backlog in cases, especially in the Klang Valley, was high. That is why we were not reflecting the actual deaths (on the date they died).

“Now, we will report the actual date of death, then we will perform the post mortem. If there is anything that needs to be clarified, then later we will clarify or amend the data. This is so we can announce deaths on the actual date of death,” he said.

[More to follow] - Mkini