Health Ministry’s new Covid-19 website most welcome but Khairy has still to honour his undertaking to give more details about the high Brought-in-Dead (BID) Covid-19 deaths
The Heath Ministry’s new Covid-19 website is most welcome but the Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin had still to honour his undertaking in Kota Kinabalu on Monday to give more details about the high Brought-in-Dead (BID) Covid-19 deaths.
Khairy had said in Kota Kinabalu on Monday that the high number of Covid-19 deaths reported daily did not reflect the actual number of fresh deaths that occur within 24 hours, as the numbers were sometimes piled up over several days as the authorities need time to confirm the cause of death, especially in places like the Klang Valley.
When Khairy said that the daily death reports were not necessarily from the last 24 hours, as there was “a long backlog because we have to confirm the cause of death is from Covid-19 and not something else”, he was clearly saying that the BID Covid-19 death figures should be very much higher.
He promised to make further announcements and explanations on the high number of Brought-in-Dead (BID) Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday after he got new data but Khairy has still to keep to his undertaking.
The high BID Covid-19 deaths were basically an August phenomenon, as in July there were some 500 BID Covid-19 deaths which tripled in August to over 1,600 cases.
In the first ten days of Khairy as the new Heath Minister, the Health Ministry reported 876 BID Covid-19 deaths, which is more than thrice the total number of BID Covid-19 deaths in the first 10 days of August.
Now, Khairy says that these BID Covid-19 figures are a serious under-estimate and this is the reason why Malaysians are expecting Khairy to give the full and true picture and the reason why I have asked how many corpses are in the hospitals, giving state-by-state figures, which are not recorded in the Ministry of Health data on Covid-19 because they are awaiting Covid-19 tests.
From the new website, it would appear that there is a total of 3,417 BID Covid-19 deaths out the cumulative total of 19,486 deaths, representing 17.5% which is too high a figure especially as it has escalated in recent weeks. For instance, on Sept. 8, it was over 30% as there were 102 BID Covid-19 deaths out of a daily total of 361 Covid-19 deaths - which according to Khairy, is a serious underestimate.
Khairy must take urgent measures to cut down the high BID Covid-19 figures, and I welcome his decision that all Category Three Covid-19 patients be sent to quarantine centres along with the high-risk in Category Two cases.
More should be done to slash the high BID Covid-19 death rates and Khairy should welcome ideas and suggestions from both the public and private health sectors.