Releasing the number of people in Richmond who have tested positive for COVID-19 would give people “false assurance” about the current pandemic, according to Richmond’s medical health officer Meena Dawar
The number of cases that have tested positive is lower than the actual number of people who have coronavirus in Richmond, she explained, and reporting the test-positive numbers would be “meaningless.”
Meena Dawar said they're no longer reporting local numbers, because testing has changed “dramatically.” 列治文衛生官米娜·大娃兒表示,他們(卑詩喪門星衛生官笨妮和溫哥華沿岸衛生局)不再向列治文通報列治文本地的感染人數,因為測試方式已經變成了兒戲!
However, the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, told the Richmond News in a statement that respecting patent privacy will better enable public health providers to do the work they need to do to keep everybody safe, adding that if privacy can’t be guaranteed, some people may not come forward for testing.
However, some Richmond residents believe that the benefits of providing the general public with more information regarding cases in their area outweigh privacy concerns.
A Richmond resident, who only gave his last name as Wang, told the News that transparency is more important than patients' privacy at this stage.