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The Covid-19 information system shows that Kovid hospitals reported three times more deaths than officially announced and that the discrepancies in the numbers cannot be explained by inaccuracies in the system. BIRN reveals that the authorities had access to the data in the database.
The associates of Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, Health Minister Zlatibor Lončar and the Director of the IT Sector of the Republic Health Insurance Fund participated in the development of the Covid-19 Information System, that is, they had an idea of the real number of coronaviruses tested, sick and dead collected by the Trampoline Institute. discover BIRN.
BIRN reveals that Svetlana Jovanovic, Senior Advisor to Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic’s office, is listed as the main contact “for all technical questions related to the use of the Covid-19 information system” in the User Guide sent to all health institutions in April 2020. registry of coronavirus infection.
Jovanovic declined to speak to BIRN, saying she was “technical support” and “had no information on the data.”
Three months after BIRN announced that the Information System data showed that the crown’s death toll was much higher than officially announced, a member of the crisis staff, Dr. Predrag Kon is a guest on the NewsMax Adria program on Tuesday He said his investigation showed there were three times more deaths than were reported in writing.
Kon said in June that BIRN’s wording “looks like a conspiracy theory,” only to find the culprit for the data discrepancies in an inaccurate reporting system this week.
However, BIRN research shows that the Covid-19 information system worked: that the authorities of covid hospitals, public health institutes and laboratories entered data into the system on a daily basis, that the data flowed to the Trampoline Institute, and that the authorities had access to the correct data, they simply did not disclose it to the public.
BIRN also learns that the information system was developed by Marko Jovanovic, director of the IT sector at the Republic Health Insurance Fund. BIRN tried to contact Jovanovic, but did not respond.
The BIRN journalists requested documentation on what public service had the authority, that is, which private company was assigned the task of creating the Covid-19 information system, after requesting access to information of public importance for the RHIF and the Government of Serbia They did not present the requested documents.
BIRN sources claim that Nikola Pandrc, the chief of staff of the Minister of Health, Zlatibor Loncar, also had an idea of the data.
Every day, the Trampoline Institute authorities sent reports to the Ministry of Health and the Information Technology Office of the Government of Serbia with data on the number of tested and positive in the last 24 hours and the number of deaths.
In the Information System itself, in addition to a series of deaths, there is a special label “approved by the Ministry of Health,” but none of the authorities wanted to explain to the BIRN what that column meant.
In a telephone conversation with BIRN, the chief of staff of the Ministry of Health, Nikola Pandrc, says that we are asking the public relations service of the Ministry of Health what their work was during the crisis.
When asked if he was at the Trampoline Institute during the crisis, he had access to the data, and the video column in the system was “approved by the Ministry of Health,” he said, “he did not participate in any organization or manage,” but check with the public relations service.
Even today it is not clear who decided and why the data that exists in the Information System should not be communicated to the public, but should be reduced.
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic me Minister of Health Zlatibor Lončar They were left today with accusations that the officially published data on the number of infected and dead was not manipulated.
“Serbia will do a full review for every death, for every man, to see what he looks like,” Vucic said, adding that he didn’t think there would be any big differences.
The difference in the number of deaths was discovered in mid-June.
BIRN recalls that in mid-June, after reviewing the data from the Covid-19 Information System, it announced that 1,081 patients had died in kovid hospitals in Serbia from March 19 to June 1, 2020, of which 632 had been identified with certainty. who were positive for the coronavirus before death. In the same period, it was officially announced that far fewer patients died – 244.
On March 28, 2020, the Government of Serbia approved a Conclusion on the establishment of the Covid-19 Information System, which is designed to be a central place where all data related to the corona virus will flow, BIRN recalls.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, as a guest on Pink TV, said that she and President Aleksandar Vučić insisted that this database be created “so that we have completely transparent data at all times, import all the data, so that we know what it’s happening all the time. “
Although some members of the Crisis Staff tried to explain after the BIRN text that the data could be entered into the Information System later, according to personal memory and discretion, by the conclusion of the Government of Serbia and other acts, that procedure was defined with precision.
The user guide for the use of the Information System establishes that all institutions that deal with the fight against coronavirus (laboratories, hospital covids and outpatient clinics) are obliged to enter data in the Information System immediately or no later than two hours after an important event for the fight against covid. case, test result, respirator placement, free hospital beds …).
The user manual, which was sent to all health institutions on April 2, also contains the mobile phone number of Svetlana Jovanović, Senior Advisor to the Cabinet of Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić.
“You can send all technical questions related to the use of the Application to the email address or call the number (Svetlana Jovanović’s phone number),” the document reads.
Svetlana Jovanović has been hired as a Senior Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office in the Unit for the Implementation of Strategic Projects, Electronic Services and Electronic Government Development, according to her publicly available biography.
Jovanović works as an assistant at the Belgrade Faculty of Organizational Sciences, where he is preparing his doctoral thesis. “He is the author of numerous works and monographs in the field of personal data protection and the exercise of other rights on the Internet.”
Prime Minister Brnabic’s senior adviser Svetlana Jovanovic declined to speak to BIRN to explain her role in the development of the covid-19 information system, because she was “not authorized to make statements.”
In a telephone conversation, she explained “that she has never seen the data” and that she is an “expert associate”.
BIRN received no response from Prime Minister Brnabić’s office on the role of adviser Jovanović. “I have no information on that and I cannot help them,” the Prime Minister’s PR reported in a telephone conversation with BIRN reporters.
BIRN journalists tried to contact adviser Jovanovic even before the June 2020 text was published, but she did not respond to calls at the time.
The claim that BIRN did not invite the Prime Minister’s Office to comment before the publication of the aforementioned text was made by Ana Brnabić as a guest on Pink TV, as well as at the press conference.
“If you from the BIRN had good intentions, honorable intentions, you would have told us about this information and these reports. You did not try, you tried declaratively. You tried to contact some advisers from my cabinet, who have no written record that we are trying to contact them” Ana Brnabic said at the time.
Dr. Predrag Kon did not respond to BIRN’s questions and calls until today’s text was published.
When asked what she saw in the system, if there were three times more deaths than were publicly announced, the director of the Batut Institute of Public Health, Dr. Verica Jovanovic, said that “this is too complicated a topic that is not should discuss by phone. “and that it is about ‘harassing the public and the profession.’
BIRN reporters tried to get an explanation from the institute before publishing an article about the large numerical difference on June 22, when the director did not show up for the scheduled meeting.
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