SHAH ALAM, Nov 4 ― The Health Ministry’s decision not to share its detailed data on Covid-19 has left Selangor in the lurch, forcing the state government to play a guessing game in curbing further infections, Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud claimed today.

The state executive councillor in charge of Selangor’s public health, unity, women and family development said the state government has been hoping to merge its contact tracing application, Selangkah, with the federal government's MySejahtera for ease of data gathering, but this request was also not heeded.

“When Dr Dzulkefly said that we asked to help the government to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Selangor, but we’re blindsided without the information,” she said in the state legislative assembly.

Dr Siti Mariah was referring to former health minister Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad who currently heads the Selangor government's Covid-19 task force.

Advertisement

“What we know is the information tabled by the Health director-general in his press conferences, and the Selangor Health Department (JKS), on its website and Facebook, and also random information, sometimes, from certain parties.

“Sometimes it's a guessing game and we are quite saddened with this situation,” she said, adding that the state government however would not give up and would continue its efforts to fight the pandemic.

Dr Siti Mariah was responding to Kampung Tunku representative Lim Yi Wei, who had asked the state government about the federal government’s response to the Dzulkefly's request to share information about the virus infections in Selangor.

Advertisement

She said the state had requested data from the federal government months ago, as early as when the movement control order was imposed in March.

Dr Siti Mariah said this was to enable the integration of Selangkah and MySejahtera to assist the JKS in predicting where future infections might break out in Selangor.

“Unfortunately, until the end, we didn't get the raw data and the D-G said that the raw data cannot be shared as he is afraid the data would be wrongly interpreted, so we didn't get it,” she added, referring to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Health Minister Datuk Dr Adham Baba replied today, saying his ministry won’t share raw data with the states to avoid causing confusion.

In a written parliamentary reply to Dzulkefly who is Kuala Selangor MP, Dr Adham said sharing data would lead to different interpretations and possibly cause panic among Malaysians and cited “past incidents”, without elaborating on them.