Canberrans deserve COVID-19 information provided freely in other states

But there is another right people of this territory are routinely denied - the right to know.

While a casual observer may have assumed each state and territory had taken a similar approach to informing the public throughout the pandemic, any Canberra journalist or keen-eyed ACT political observer will tell you differently.

One only needs to look at the weekly epidemiological reports provided in NSW compared to the ACT.

The latest report from NSW is 14 pages long. It has detailed information on the vaccination status of everybody admitted to hospital in the past week, the age groups of people admitted to hospital and the vaccination status of those who have died.

NSW Health also routinely provides information around underlying health conditions of people who have died.

Meanwhile, the ACT releases a one-page document every week. It has the number of cases reported that week, a breakdown of cases by age group, cases detected by PCR and rapid antigen tests and a table of key points determined by authorities.

It goes no way towards answering questions such as whether a person who died was vaccinated, for example.

While the territory's health authorities have a long history of evading questions and being scant with providing information, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse during the Omicron peak.

The outbreak over the summer affected the Canberra community and the country in a way COVID-19 had never before.

The public were rightly asking questions around what was happening as cases surged and there were more deaths.

The absence of the Chief Health Officer, Kerryn Coleman, during this time was conspicuous.

After several requests from readers regarding vaccination statuses and underlying health conditions of intensive care admissions and deaths, The Canberra Times managed to get ACT Health to agree to providing the information as a group.

But even after this agreement it took more than a week for authorities to provide the data. The Canberra Times decided to put in a freedom of information request to shed light on the delays to this response.

The documents - a chain of emails between ACT Health officials - have revealed just how convoluted the entire process was.

Senior health officials expressed concerns about how information around vaccination statuses and underlying health conditions would breach patient confidentiality.

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To be clear, The Canberra Times was not seeking any identifiable information at all, because it is very hard to identify somebody by their vaccination status (unless they publicly espouse their views) or whether they have an underlying health condition.

Ultimately, officials decided to not present information about underlying health conditions, even though authorities said this was an important part of the picture.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith even wanted to clarify that a number of the people who died with COVID-19 were in palliative care but this was kiboshed by health officials who said they did not have the data.

It is important to acknowledge the ACT is a much smaller jurisdiction. Unlike NSW or Victoria, the territory probably needs to be more cautious in providing information as it is more likely to be identifiable. But at the same time saying a person had "significant underlying health conditions" is not really identifying information.

The smaller population may also mean that discernible trends around vaccination rates and COVID-19 deaths cannot be properly reflected. The ACT population is also highly vaccinated which is another mitigating factor.

Underlying health conditions in no way justify any death from this virus. In fact, people with chronic health conditions, which is about 47 per cent of the population, do have a right to know if the virus is disproportionately affecting them. If booster shots don't show the full picture then they are entitled to know this.

This data is released elsewhere in the nation. The pandemic has dominated the past two years of our lives and the Canberra public has a right to know what is happening.

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