Brazilian Prosecutor's Office Questions COVID-19 Data

The Brazilian Ministry of Health has 72 hours to explain the omission of data related to COVID-19, according to a request from the Brazilian Prosecutor's Office.

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Health authorities on Saturday reduced the daily number of deaths and confirmed cases of the new coronavirus due to an official data disclosure methodology adopted since Friday.

The bulletin released by the Ministry of Health no longer includes consolidated data on the accumulated number of deaths, confirmed and recovered cases, contagions in analysis, deaths in investigation and trend curves.

In this regard, the Chamber of Social Rights and Control of Administrative Acts of the Federal Public Ministry announced on Saturday night an extrajudicial process to investigate the reasons that led the Ministry of Health to modify the disclosure methodology.

For her part, the deputy attorney general of the Republic, Celia Regina Delgado, and the coordinator of the Prosecutor's Health Working Group, Edilson Vitorelli, affirmed in their decision that the Brazilian Constitution "guarantees access to information for all."

Likewise, the ongoing process asserts that the acting Minister of Health, General Eduardo Pazuello, must present the information on the matter within 72 hours from its notification. In addition, these must include a copy of the administrative act that established the withdrawal of the consolidated data from the disclosure platform.

Added to Saturday's figures, which have been officially disclosed since the first case registered in the country, on February 26 in Sao Paulo, the South American giant totals 672,846 infections and 35,930 deaths.

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, justified on Saturday the changes in the methodology of disclosure of daily reports on the coronavirus and argued that its new publication, late at night, aims to avoid "underreporting" and "inconsistencies" .