Ministry Covid 19 Death Figures Now Dynamic But More Indicative

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Due to an ongoing exercise to clear its backlog of Covid-19 death data, the Health Ministry expects the number of “reported deaths” to spike in the coming days.
However, it has advised the public to refer to a new dataset - “actual deaths” - as an indicator of the real-time situation.
This is part of its transition to a new death reporting mechanism that aims to capture the number of “reported deaths” as well as “actual deaths” in its new pandemic-tracking website CovidNow. 
In a briefing to the media this morning, ministry officials explained that reported deaths refer to the number of deaths reported from hospitals to the ministry on a particular day.
This is where the ministry has been experiencing a backlog as the public healthcare system was swamped by Covid-19 cases. 
The delay was also due to the old reporting mechanism that could take up to “weeks” and misrepresented the real-time situation.
This mechanism has since been overhauled where deaths are announced as soon as they are reported. 

They are later analysed and included in a new data point - actual deaths.

This requires tallying confirmed Covid-19 deaths based on the date of death.
According to the ministry, this “actual death” number will be “dynamic” and may rise after officials perform the necessary procedures to confirm a death as a Covid-19 death and update the data retrospectively.
The ministry will then use this “actual deaths” number to calculate its seven-day moving average, thus the (7d average) label.
For example, CovidNow showed that a record 592 Covid-19 deaths were reported yesterday (Sept 11).
This was far higher than the previous daily death record. The ministry confirmed today that this high number was due to backlog.
Meanwhile, the website stated that the number of “actual deaths” on Sept 11 was 100.
However, at the time of writing, the ministry’s raw data repository on Github stated that there were only four “actual deaths” reported on Sept 11. 
This is expected to rise over time as authorities complete investigations on deaths.
Cases easing, can tackle backlog
During the briefing, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham’s special officer Dr Faizul Nizam Abu Salim explained that public hospitals were now resolving the backlog as the Covid-19 situation was finally easing.
This was especially in the Klang Valley where the healthcare system was previously severely strained.
“They (hospital staff) have more time now, they are a little more ease in terms of their burden of cases. So they have the opportunity to do so, to report (and) get things (done) faster.
“So don’t be surprised if you were to see (in the) next few days, a lot of tall horizontal lines for the blue bar (reported deaths),” he said.
The ministry aims to clear its backlog by next week.


Instead of the number of the reported deaths, Faizul contended that the more representative indicator was the number of actual deaths.
“What we are predicting is that the black line (actual deaths) will more or less remain the same. We are seeing a downward trend,” he forecasted.
Death audit timeframe soon
As the ministry clears the backlog and transitions to the new reporting mechanism, it wants to deter future delays by giving hospitals a time limit for reporting deaths.
This was while also ensuring the reporting process adhered to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.
This was according to the ministry’s medical development division senior principal assistant director Dr Faizah Muhamad Zin.
“At this point in time, when we actually receive the death report that a death occurred in a particular hospital, we should receive it within 24 to 72 hours [...]
“There are certain things we need to look at when we need to classify a death as a ‘due to Covid-19’ death. This is very important simply because our data is actually being submitted to the WHO,” she explained.
Faizah also said that the ministry will implement time frames for hospitals to confirm Covid-19 deaths. For some cases, this process may involve post-mortem, toxicology tests and other procedures.
“We are catching up with the backlog and subsequently we will come out with a key performance index [...] where we will put a period for hospitals to actually come out with (a confirmation) within the maximum point of time,” she added.
‘Actual deaths’ better indicator
Despite the dynamic nature of the “actual deaths” number, ministry officials do not expect the figures to fluctuate a lot once the backlog is cleared.
They thus advised using this number as an indicator of Covid-19 death trends, instead of the reported deaths figure.
Faizul reiterated that the line graph charted by the number of actual deaths indicated the real-time death trend.
“The situation is dynamic, what is important for the death cases is to look at the black line (actual deaths) [...]
“From our projection, reporting and the number of pending cases that we have been having, it is not going to change much. It will be more or less the same,” he projected.  - Mkini

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