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In the framework of the investigation on the handling of figures and deaths due to Covid-19, six officials of the Department of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health (Minsal) they agreed on their statement that the data related to the virus were accommodated at the convenience of the Ministry.
The testimonies of the former members were delivered last October 5 to the North Central Prosecutor’s Office, who inquired to corroborate or discard the veracity of the information.
The statements supported those of Andrea Albagli, a former official of the same section, who previously stated -on September 30- that superiors “asked to manipulate the database”.
This situation was reviewed in the constitutional accusation against the former Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, (which ended up being rejected) who in defense and response pointed the darts against Epivigila: “The compass we used had enormous difficulties, and that compass is called the Epivigila system.“.
However, in the data collection of the Public Ministry, Third gave an account of testimonies from the epidemiological team where they admitted that they were adjusting the cut-off time of the reports to what was required by their superiors.
Order that -as detailed- was imposed by Johanna acevedo, head of the Health Planning Division (Diplas) of the Minsal. But, they indicated that they do not know who was asking her.
The alleged phone call from the Daza undersecretary
However, one of the officials, Mario Soto, affirmed to the prosecutor Marcelo carrasco what witnessed a phone call to Acevedo, issued by the Undersecretary of Health, Paula Daza.
“I witnessed an indication from Daza to Johanna Acevedo. This indication was given to her by phone It consisted of generating the epidemiological report all over again, but from the laboratory’s database. However, said database has no epidemiological history (…) This report was not made. I don’t know what his goal was, he didn’t like the data, the shape. It was in April, it must have been the second week of April, “Soto said.
Another of the workers of the Department of Epidemiology, Patricia Cerda, indicated that “he knew that our data had to fit with those reported by the minister, but I don’t know where that instruction came from“.
Fabio Paredes: I made a graph with the data differences
The team’s statistical engineer, Fabio Paredes, he warned the prosecutor that he made “a graph with the difference between what we produced and what Mañalich communicated“.
Given this, Paredes confirmed the accusations issued and explained that “one is the (report) made by the minister (…) Another is a daily report that we made based on the instructions that he gave us through the headquarters. That caused sometimes we had more confirmed cases than he reported in his report“.
Paredes argued that “initially they had to be consistent with the official information. It was a requirement that came from the minister. Everyone knew that within the department (…) I could not explain how the two reports were matched if they had different sources.
