This is the Covid-19 data we need

Testing data is vital if we are to make sense of daily Covid-19 case numbers. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star

ONE of the critical aspects of this pandemic is having meaningful and granular data that can be used to make decisions. We are very thankful to the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force and the Health Ministry for the data made available on github.com/MoH-Malaysia/covid19-public. It has been useful to help understand the pandemic and many bright Malaysians have given us some good analysis from that data set.

However, meaningful data has three characteristics: it must be transparent, granular, and timely (or “in real time”). We understand the struggles to post real-time data and Malaysia has improved somewhat with data transparency. But we still have no access to granular data. Without granular data we are unable to understand the needs down to the district/state level, cannot get a profile of risk, have difficulty monitoring the outbreak regionally, and may not be able to respond to local health service needs.