KUCHING, Sept 13: Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei asserts the number of daily Covid-19 cases is not the only statistic which should be considered when assessing the current Covid-19 situation in the State.
He noted that much like everyone else, he had questioned what caused the drastic increase in Covid-19 cases to more than 5,000 cases yesterday and there were calls on social media demanding explanations either from the minister or Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).
“In fact, in the daily SDMC report, there are other information and statistics which are very much relevant and important.
“In vaccination era (sic), apart for daily positive numbers, we should start to learn (about) other numbers and information in understanding the pandemic situation that we are facing.
“It is reported that the reason for today’s (yesterday’s) over 5,000 positive cases is because of the backlog of screening results in the past 5 days,” said Wong in a social media post yesterday.
He said Sarawak conducts a significant amount of Covid-19 screenings, between 15,000-20,000 per day.
“In vaccination era (sic), I feel there is a need for media and rakyat (the people) to also pay attention to other numbers than just positive numbers, for example the number of severity (sic) or mortality (sic), especially those in Category 3, 4 and 5.”
He noted that out of the 5,291 cases reported yesterday, there was a total of three cases in Category 3, 4 and 5 (0.06 per cent) as Sarawak has a high vaccination rate.
As for Covid-19 fatalities, most had co-morbidities and this, to him, was also an important piece of information.
“If you are still looking at the positive numbers alone, you may need to start to look for other statistics, so that we can be well informed of the actual situation of the pandemic.
“To move our society forward, it is now the time to strike a balance in between ‘over complacent’ and ‘over panicking’.”
Wong said complacency will put Sarawakians’ health in jeopardy while over-panicking will jeopardise the State’s economy.
“Less criticism, less sedition (sic) and more constructive views do help,” he said. — DayakDaily
