PETALING JAYA: There were 100 deaths due to Covid-19 on Saturday, according to figures from the Health Ministry’s CovidNow website.

       The website listed another 492 Covid-19 fatalities from previous days which could not be confirmed earlier due to a reporting backlog, bringing the total number of deaths to 20,419.

       Dr Mahesh Appannan, head of data at the ministry’s Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre, said the ministry had decided to release two daily figures relating to Covid-19 fatalities, namely “Reported Deaths” and “Actual Deaths” in order to increase transparency over its reporting backlog.

       Reported Deaths are based on the day the fatalities are announced to the public.

       Actual Deaths are based on the actual date of death.

       “We are categorising the reported cases according to the true date of death, so the rakyat and policymakers can get a proper picture,” Dr Mahesh tweeted.

       “Back in July/August, our frontliners were really overwhelmed, especially in the Klang Valley.

       “This caused some delays in investigation, and therefore reporting. This means that some deaths which happened weeks ago are only concluding investigation, audit and reporting now,” he said.

       Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had earlier tweeted that he had asked Dr Mahesh to explain and provide context and regular insights on datasets that the ministry publishes daily.

       Dr Mahesh said the ministry aimed to be transparent on the figures.

       “But it is also vital for us to have a proper picture of the trend – in the Klang Valley, deaths are clearly going down, not up (as expected with a high vaccination percentage),” Dr Mahesh added.

       He said Malaysia was one of the few countries that made its death list public, referring to an organised and detailed list of each death according to actual and reported date.

       Dr Mahesh said the ministry reported deaths as being “due to Covid-19” rather than “with Covid-19”.

       “Death due to Covid-19” refers to a clinical investigation that has found that the cause of death was Covid-19.

       “Death with Covid-19”, meanwhile, means that the patient was positive for Covid-19 at the time of death, or a short time before.

       “We focus on deaths ‘due to Covid-19’ because it is important to have the correct number for analysis of vaccine effectiveness, case fatality rate, etc.

       “However, this takes time, because it requires autopsy and clinical audit, rather than just checking if the patient is Covid-19-positive,” said Dr Mahesh.

       Saturday also saw a change in how the ministry announced the number of deaths and active cases.

       While the figures had previously been included in the ministry’s daily Covid-19 statement, the ministry in its statement on Saturday said that data on deaths, active cases and several other matters would be uploaded to its Github online hosting page as well as the CovidNow website.