THE Health Ministry stopped publishing granular data on Covid-19 deaths and opted for a more concise form of reporting to ensure the daily press statements are released on time, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said in a parliamentary written reply.

Khairy said since the start of the third wave, the list of deaths has also gotten longer. He said this prompted the ministry to opt for a more concise table.

“Information such as the number of deaths, gender, nationality, hospital deaths and brought-in-dead cases and the total number of cases with underlying health conditions are listed according to states in the table.

“The changes made to the table to make it more concise was to ensure that the press release could be published at the right time every day,” Khairy said.

Khairy, who is also Rembau MP, noted that the granular data was published in the daily press release by the health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in the earlier phases of the pandemic. It was done to create awareness on the virus, and the list of deaths then was not as long as it was in the latter phases.

The profiles of the deceased, including their gender, age, place of death and health history was part of the daily press release since the first Covid-19 deaths were reported in the country on March 17,2020.

However, the ministry stopped providing the data from July 14.

Khairy said the Health Ministry will also share more detailed data on Covid-19 cases in the near future. However, he said the individuals’ identities would be protected and personal details such as names, IC numbers, addresses and phone numbers would not be shared.

“The ministry hopes that the data made available will allow stakeholders to carry out data analysis and the information would be used wisely to prevent the transmission of Covid-19 in the country,” he said.

He added that the ministry has also published some data on its GitHub site.

Khairy was responding to former Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad’s (Kuala Selangor-PH) question on why the ministry stopped publishing the data that included age and health history. – October 8, 2021.