MOH launches COVIDNow portal, provides more granular COVID-19 data including vaccine adverse effects

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has revealed a new COVIDNow portal (covidnow.moh.gov.my) which will provide more granular COVID-19 data. The portal will go live today and it will offer more data on top of what is currently shared on Github. The current infographics produced by the Ministry of Health will be replaced with data from the new portal.

In the spirit of transparency, the Ministry of Health will provide clearer details for COVID-19 fatalities including the actual time and date of death, age, vaccination status and comorbidities. The portal also provides more detailed data for active cases such as the number of individuals under home quarantine, in hospital, and in ICU for every state. COVIDNow Portal will be updated daily at midnight.

To address concerns of COVID-19 vaccine side effects, the COVIDNow portal will also provide granular data for Adverse Effects Following Immunisation (AEFI) according to vaccine type. At the moment, this information will be shared via Github. The current daily evening reports from the Health Director-General will still continue for a about week before transitioning to midnight updates.

The COVIDNow portal is now live and you can filter the data for each category by state and duration. It is available in both English and Malay.

The new portal was developed by a team of volunteers who have worked closely with the Ministry of Health. One of the team members is Henry Lim, the person behind @MyVaccineCount. As mentioned on the About page, Henry Lim is in charge of the front-end web development while Calum Lim is responsible for the design. Meanwhile, the back-end development is handled by Sheng Han Lim of vax.tehcpeng.net and Roshen Maghhan.

Henry has also clarified that the COVIDNow site was done voluntarily and they didn’t want to be paid for the project. Responding to comments on Twitter, he said nobody stole their work or was forced to do so. He added they are happy to work with Ministry of Health’s doctors and Khairy’s team to do something good for Malaysia.