New Sabah govt pressed for more detailed Covid-19 data

 

The new Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) state government was slammed for being slow to disclose new Covid-19 data for the state as compared with the previous administration.

The Sabah Health Department was also criticised for sharing less detailed Covid-19 data, based on districts, instead of sub-district data which was available to the public during the previous Warisan government.

A check of the Sabah health director's social media page only found district-level Covid-19 data for Oct 4, which was uploaded earlier today at 2am.

The previous state government had uploaded new Covid-19 data at 7pm, which included details down to the sub-district level.

Former Sabah health and people's wellbeing minister Frankie Poon said detailed data should be made available so that the public would be more aware of the risks they faced.

"Everyone is entitled to such basic information," he said, adding that because the new state government did not disclose detailed data, he had attempted to get the information directly from Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

"I contacted Dr Hisham to get the data. If I obtain the data, I will upload the information myself," said Poon.

Taking to social media, unhappy netizens also demanded the state government to put up the latest Covid-19 information according to how the previous administration and Poon's team had done.

For the record, Sabah, which is about 55 percent the size of Peninsular Malaysia, contains 26 districts.

There were 1,206 active cases in Sabah as of noon yesterday.

According to the state health department, the Kota Kinabalu district had 160 active cases as of yesterday.

The adjacent districts of Penampang and Putatan had 17 and 11 active cases respectively.

So far, the worst-hit districts are led by Semporna with 451 active cases, Tawau (340), Kunak (132), and Lahad Datu (98).

This prompted the National Security Council to place Kota Kinabalu, Penampang, and Putatan under lockdown from Oct 7.

Previously, the government locked down Semporna, Tawau, Kunak, and Lahad Datu. - Mkini