As our cases continue to rise every day, netizens have taken to social media to air out their frustrations and to question authorities about the current pandemic.
In response to a recent tweet questioning the Ministry of Health (MOH) and their statistics regarding Covid-19 deaths in Malaysia, the MOH has taken to their official Facebook page to clarify how they filter through Covid-19 deaths.
In their post, the MOH explained that there are actually two kinds of Covid-19 deaths: 1. when a patient dies from Covid-19 and 2. when a patient dies with Covid-19.
The former type of death is what will be announced by the MOH and is included in the national Covid-19 death statistics, while the latter will be included in the monitoring of Covid-19 involved-death lists at the MOH level only.
This is because the virus itself did not cause the deaths of patients who died with Covid-19, it just means that the patients had the disease when they passed due to other causes.
They also explained that the filtering process can be a lengthy one as every death needs to be reviewed by specialists and experts, in order to ensure that the deaths being included in the statistics are truly caused by Covid-19.
If, and only if, the deaths were caused by Covid-19 according to WHO guidelines, will they then be announced by Tan Sri DG Dr Noor Hisham and will be included in the national Covid-19 death statistics.
To illustrate their point further, the MOH also provided three different scenarios where patients’ deaths would not be included in the national statistics:
Example one:
An accident broke out, someone dies from bleeding.
The patient died due to the accident, but when filtered, they’re found to be Covid-19 positive. Maybe the patient is just Stage 1 Covid-19 that has no symptoms. The cause of his death was not caused by Covid-19 but was due to the accident instead.
Example two:
The patient was admitted to the hospital due to Covid-19.
They were treated in the hospital for a long time. But after several weeks/months in the hospital, they died from other innate germ infections or other health problems. So this patient is essentially not a death caused by Covid-19, although they were admitted to the hospital initially due to Covid-19. These cases will then be researched by specialists to determine the real cause of death.
Example three:
A man enters the hospital and dies because of a heart attack.
When filtered, it’s found that he is COVID-19 positive. It is considered death caused by a heart attack, not death due to COVID-19.
They finish up the post urging Malaysians to direct any questions or uncertainties they may have to the hospitals themselves or to make a complaint through the SISPAA website.
“It is important that your doubts are answered and you are not left confused so that it does not cause any unwanted speculation.”
On 13 January, a Facebook user expressed doubts and uncertainty after it was announced that there were four new deaths, totaling up to 559 deaths caused by Covid-19 in Malaysia.
“In truth, are there more deaths than what is being announced, or are we all at risk of being ‘claimed’ by Covid deaths? But death management is the way Covid dies. Impossible that this death management method is all fun and games, it’s impossible for them not to update. If so, it would have reached 1000 deaths. We also have the right to know,” he wrote in his post.
Also read: Video: Doctor Couldn’t Stop Trembling While Giving President Jokowi His Covid-19 Vaccine
