HPB admits to flaws in COVID-19 statistics

COLOMBO (News 1st): The Director of the Health Promotion Bureau of Sri Lanka, Dr. Ranjith Batuwanthudawa admits that there are flaws in the COVID-19 patient statistics.

Dr. Batuwanthudawa stated this in response to a question about the COVID-19 statistics, during a press conference held on Wednesday (11).

He said that although the Ministry of Health reported 3,615 from Gampaha District within the last 9 days, reports state that 12,750 patients have been reported from the District. The HBP Director further stated that the Minister of Health and Director-General of Health are investigating the loss of records of over 8,000 patients.

Dr. Batuwanthudawa added that there is a suspicion whether the reported numbers denote the number of PCR samples obtained from the District.

Moreover, Dr. Batuwanthudawa says that between the 4,496 patients at hospitals and 1,906 patients at intermediate centers, there are about 7,000 more patients who are supposed to be obtaining treatment at hospitals, yet are at home.

He added that the Ministry of Health is investigating into the matter of statistical differences and that it is entirely possible for some deaths to be added to the numbers after much time, as well as cases due to various reasons such as lab report processing differences, and the disputed numbers may prove to be a correction in numbers which are added later.

Trade Union Leader Saman Rathnapriya claimed that the data released on COVID-19 is flawed.