Has anyone verified our Covid-19 data?

 

According to the health ministry’s own measure, the Covid-19 infectivity rate hovers around 8% to 9% – or the equivalent of 50,000 people being tested every day, in Selangor alone.

At that rate, over 100 days, a total of 5 million people would have been tested. Selangor’s population in 2020 is 6.57 million – and I am fairly certain we haven’t tested 76% of Selangor’s population yet.

Elsewhere in the world, people are seeing a relaxation of rules, including countries who have double our number of cases.

All I know is that we cannot go on with this current system.

Reaction of foreign businesses

An old friend, Ramlan Kamal, sent an email which I found to be very interesting, sane and honest. He was referring to my column on June 29, Making sense of statistics on Covid-19 cases.

Basically, he said that the daily announcement of Covid-19 data has not been as transparent as it should be.

That data has not been subjected to any official audit or any scrutiny by an independent assessor. Yet the government relies so much on this data, which should be a cause for concern.

They use this data to justify various levels of movement control orders (MCO), the state of emergency and the closure of parliament.

Now, this same data has been used again to extend the national lockdown, indefinitely. Many businesses and economic activities which support the livelihood of the entire population are at risk.

A short term MCO may be acceptable and understood, but indefinite lockdown is another matter altogether.

He felt strongly that the government has failed to assess the economic and financial impact properly. This view is, in fact, very similar to the letters written by foreign chambers of commerce which have been shared and circulated widely, and five foreign business councils have urged the government to re-assess lockdown SOPs and its effects on multinational companies in Selangor and Johor.

Using data for political motives?

My friend also pointed out that the government should by now have realised the impact of job losses, loss of income to the working class and the loss of economic opportunities to individuals and companies in various sectors of the domestic economy.

With the current indefinite lockdown, it has led to further closures of businesses, loss of employment and ruined our domestic economy further, as shown in another FMT piece of July 7, Micro SMEs on verge of collapse, 7 million could lose jobs.

He said that it appears like the government was, and is, also using this Covid-19 positive data to serve their own political agenda and objectives.

Is it because the political masters say so? And the civil servants follow. Or is it the other way around? Somehow, science has not been placed at the forefront.

For instance, why is it so difficult for the health ministry to allow the prescription of the drug, Ivermectin, to be taken by those who contract Covid-19? Why have other countries done so?

Many countries have moved on from assessing the daily data and have decided to live with the coronavirus. Why can’t we?

Freedom Day

Sunday night’s football match between Italy and England was a good example. Wembley stadium was packed with spectators from both countries. No social distancing and no masks. And yet the UK registered more than 23,000 positive cases on Saturday, the day before the big match.

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has also announced their new five approaches to live with Covid-19 over what the British referred to as their Freedom Day, after which the responsibility to deal with the pandemic lies more with the people while the government will provide all the guidance.

Here in Malaysia, we even declared a state of emergency when cases hovered around 3,000 per day. But after seven months of emergency, closure of parliament and three rounds of MCOs, we are still struggling to find our footing and refuse to learn from others who have been ahead of us in battling this pandemic.

We did not even attempt to take some lessons from countries that did not, at all, implement lockdowns.

Even the World Health Organization has now admitted that lockdowns are not a recommended method or solution. Somehow we are stuck in the old formula or approach applied.

I have heard complaints from other friends about tackling the Covid-19 crisis purely by the MCO approach, repeatedly doing the same thing with the expectation of getting different results. That is why this adverse health scenario has not been improving, based on the daily infectivity data.

I wonder why?

EMCO is inhumane

In our worst-case scenario, people have been locked up in their dwelling units, almost as if they are criminals or terrorists. An Enhanced MCO or EMCO is an inhumane kind of treatment.

Perhaps if people were made to know where the clusters originated from, they would have better knowledge about places to avoid.

Sharing of data and giving prior information should be more transparent to allow people to make their own informed decisions about what to do, rather than be caught by surprise with EMCO.

Perhaps those in-charge do not want residents of these localities to move out temporarily just prior to the EMCO being imposed, if they were to know about it beforehand. Thus, the lack of information sharing, or so I was told.

No wonder some people think that this government has not only failed in achieving its objectives but is also cruel as far as the EMCO is concerned.

The nation’s economy is dependent on the raw data presented daily. Without any avenue for independent analysis to determine or review its veracity, are we to simply accept that such numbers are true and that the numbers have been appropriately verified to contain no flaws at all?

Does every state that reports the data sign off to verify their data on a daily basis? This ought to be appropriately carried out.

It is the least that opposition parties and their representatives should insist on.

There ought to be caveats to these numbers.

An extremely high positivity rate could indicate that a county, state or nation is only testing the sickest people, or those who are receiving medical attention.

The more people get tested, the more accurate the positivity rate is for a population. Mass testing should have been applied right from the start of the pandemic, not at this later stage.

It is a shame also that the opposition MPs have not been scrutinising and raising questions on the validity of this all-important Covid-19 infection data reported daily by the ministry.

Now that Parliament is to re-open, these daily numbers have suddenly been rising again. How odd is that, asked my friends. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.