Covid-19: Health D-G reveals patients tried to conceal travel history, close contacts

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The Health Department has encountered patients who tried to hide information and this had put its frontliners as well as facilities at risk. Bernama Photo

KUCHING: Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has urged patients and members of the public undergoing investigation for Covid-19 to be truthful with their travel history and close contacts.

Making the appeal on his Facebook page this afternoon, he said his department had encountered patients who tried to hide information and this had put its frontliners as well as facilities at risk.

“We had a few incidences this week where patients concealed their contacts and/or symptoms. Travel history and close contact information, for example, those linked to the tabligh gathering in Sri Petaling Mosque were also not being revealed,” he said.

“Only after clinical procedures and treatment were completed that such critical information was disclosed. By then, the safety of our healthcare workers and facilities had been jeopardised.”

Dr Noor Hisham pointed out that it was a crime not to reveal or hide information.

“I appeal to the public and patients to please be truthful and not to hide information and risk our lives and facilities,” he said.

Malaysia recorded two Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, including a 34-year-old man from Johor, who attended the religious event at the Sri Petaling Mosque from Feb 27 to March 1. The other death was a 60-year-old pastor in Kuching.

As of noon yesterday, there are 900 cases of Covid-19 in the country, of which 513 cases were linked to the mosque event.

The Health Department has traced 10,650 people to the religious event and have tested 10,553 of them.

In the bid to stop the spread of the virus from spreading, the Federal government has imposed a Movement Control Order (MCO) from March 18 to 31, 2020, requiring people to stay at home and to go out only to purchase daily essentials or services.