BY James Kon

Those isolating at home must wait for colour code to change from purple to green before ending their quarantine, said public health officials when clarifying the ‘automatic discharge’ update to the BruHealth app in a press conference on Thursday.

“Automatic discharge does not mean you decide on your own when to discharge. You need to follow the colour code that you have,” said Public Health Consultant Head of the Disease Control Division at the Ministry of Health (MoH) Dr Justin Wong.

“There will be an automated system in place that will decide. If your colour code turns green, it means that all the documentation has been verified and you can be discharged,” he said.

Meanwhile, with the new update, the patient management team will no longer call to ask about antigen rapid test (ART) results for those in quarantine.

“People will need to upload their ART results onto ART portal. The ART module on BruHealth will decide whether you are fit for discharge. If you remain purple and should be green, you can send in an appeal for the code,” he said.

Dr Wong also said the ministry apologises for delays over colour codes change.

“The issue at the moment is that a lot of changes are made manually,” he said.

“People submit their ART results to Darussalam Line 123 where there is back-end verification where the result is manually picked up.”

“With so many cases, there is some slight delay in the system. But once the automated system is in place, we expect less delay than what people are experiencing now.“ He also urged the public to report their ART result truthfully as it is against the law to provide the government with false information.

The updates to BruHealth was rolled out yesterday after testing and final checks.

To clarify public’s confusion on home quarantine, the MoH on Thursday held a press conference on Home Isolation and its management as well as the additional automated system in the BruHealth app.

The panel of officials from MoH at the press conference also included Deputy Permanent Secretary (Professional) at the MoH Dr Ang Swee Hui, Medical Officer Dr Hajah Martina binti Dato Seri Paduka Haji Kifrawi, who is the head of the patient monitoring team looking after covid-19 patients under home isolation and Infectious Diseases Consultant Dr Hajah Riamiza Natalie binti Haji Momin.

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin