REGIONAL GOVERNMENT SAYS DGS NUMBERS GENERATE “MISINFORMATION” AND ARE “HARMFUL” TO TOURISM

The Regional Health Secretariat reported today that the data reported this Friday in the report of the epidemiological situation in Portugal for Madeira are not in accordance with the daily count. The government statement contradicts DGS ‘technical explanation.

It should be noted that the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) today pointed out the existence of 163 new cases of Covid-19 in Madeira. 

According to the note sent to the newsrooms, the “figures indicated are generating disinformation among the population and are detrimental to the dynamics of the tourism sector in the region”.

“The reliable numbers are the data reported daily by the Regional Health Directorate, (These are the numbers I always post on my blog each evening) in a clear, safe and transparent way. The data reported by the DGS have as source of information national electronic platforms, SINAVE, which have presented anomalies that result in delays in notifications and information crossing “, it is also read in the same note.

“The daily reports of the Regional Health Directorate, of the COVID-19 cases, are prepared based on the most current information gathered from the Health Authorities, which in turn notify and validate the cases on the national electronic platform”.

It is recalled that the director-general of Health, Graça Freitas, told the Jornal Madeira, in Thursday’s edition, that it is normal “to have discrepancies”. In any case, he does not consider them to be “serious” and points out “that they are later settled”.

“The Directorate-General for Health only transmits the numbers that are reported in the official notification system, referring to the zero hours of the previous period, that is, the day before. Therefore, it is laboratory notifications and medical notifications that count for the system “, he observed before presenting a technical explanation.

“There will be cases that the autonomous region knows early, but that were not registered in the system, but these are minor discrepancies; there will be others in which the addresses do not exactly match the official address, and this has undergone adjustments in terms of the true location to which the case must be imputed, “added the official.

From Jornal Madeira