COVID-19: 592 deaths recorded on Sept 11 include backlog cases

PUTRAJAYA: The 592 deaths due to COVID-19 recorded for Sept 11, as posted on the newly-launched Health Ministry (MOH) website include backlog cases, said Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) head of data, Dr Mahesh Appannan.

He said out of the 592 cases reported, only 100 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours (Sept 11, until 11.59 pm) while the remaining 492 cases were previously unreported.

During a briefing to the media today on the data available on the website, Dr Mahesh said MOH had decided to be more transparent on the reported deaths and actual deaths for overall and brought-in-dead (BID) cases.

Reported deaths are based on the day the case is announced to the public while actual deaths are based on the actual date of death.

"The focus on deaths due to COVID-19 will help to have the correct number for analysis of vaccine effectiveness and case fatality rate," he said.

Dr Mahesh said the backlog deaths data was due to the human resource system, where in July and August, frontliners, especially in the Klang Valley, were overwhelmed.

"This caused some delays in investigations. It also means that for some deaths which happened weeks ago, the investigation, audit and reporting were only concluded now," he said.

Apart from COVIDNOW, similar statistics are also made available on a Github online repository page at https://github.com/MoH-Malaysia

-- BERNAMA