Tabligh leader claims only 12,500 attended Sri Petaling gathering, not 16,000
CORONAVIRUS | Leaders of the Sri Petaling tabligh group has claimed that only around 12,500 people attended its gathering earlier this month and not 16,000 as has been widely reported.
Its committee member Abdullah Cheong in a statement yesterday said the figure was based on the group's official data and calculations.
CORONAVIRUS | Leaders of the Sri Petaling tabligh group have claimed that only around 12,500 people attended its gathering earlier this month and not 16,000 as has been widely reported.
Its committee member Abdullah Cheong in a statement yesterday said the figure was based on the group's official data and calculations.
"The 12,500 estimate is not a new figure we came up with, but it is a (yearly) routine.
"The widely reported attendance figure of around 16,000 did not come from us (organisers)," said Abdullah.
He explained that their calculations were also made based on the mosque's layout and capacity, after taking into account walk-ins by local participants who are not required to formally register.
Based on their records, Abdullah said Malaysians comprise 11,000 of the 12,500 estimated figure, while the remainder were foreign participants who had returned to their home countries.
"As of March 19, Health Ministry's record showed that 10,500 people (from the tabligh cluster) were screened (for Covid-19).
"Therefore the remainder who has yet to be screened is around 500," he said.
On March 13, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah estimated that some 16,000 people had attended the international tabligh event from Feb 27 to March 1, from which around 14,500 are believed to be Malaysians.
According to data from the Health Ministry, a total of 10,650 participants from 40 tabligh headquarters have been tracked down.
From the figure, 10,553 have been screened and 4,986 samples taken - 2,559 negative and 513 positive - as of midnight on March 19.
There were also 659 participants admitted while 6,627 others were placed under home surveillance.
Since then the Health Ministry had said that it remained on alert for 4,000 other participants who have yet to be screened, on top of concerns of attempts to hide exposure to the tabligh cluster.
The call for participants to be screened was made after the discovery that Brunei's first Covid-19 positive case was linked to the gathering.
Meanwhile, Abdullah said the group leaders had received numerous reports from participants who responded to the ministry's call, but were told by their nearest hospitals or district health office to return home and self-quarantine as they did not show any Covid-19 symptoms.
"We are concerned that their details might have not be recorded before they were told to go back.
"When they heard about reports of thousands (among them) have yet to be screened, many of them went to the hospital or clinic several times until their names and details were recorded," he said.
Abdullah also disputed a Reuters report quoting sources who said some 2,000 Rohingya refugees were also in attendance at the gathering, as their records only registered around 200 Rohingyas in Kuala Lumpur and 150 other Myanmar nationals.
As of yesterday, the Covid-19 outbreak has claimed eight lives in Malaysia, five of whom were linked to the tabligh cluster.
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