Nicaraguan government’s secret data on COVID-19 exposed by Anonymous hack
The Nicaraguan government has consistently reported some of the lowest coronavirus infection numbers in Central America despite never having implemented quarantine measures. Doctors and international health organizations have expressed doubt that the government was publishing the true numbers.
Now, the former director of epidemiology of the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, Alvaro Ramirez, who is currently living in Ireland, says there is proof that the government has been systematically lying about the spread of COVID19: The hackers group Anonymous, a global collective known for its attacks of government institutions and their use of Guy Fawkes masks to hide their identities, stole the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 database and posted it online under a Twitter account.
The “Lorian Synaro” account declared that “government lies will not remain secret anymore,” and posted the database on Aug. 21. This isn’t the first time the Synaro name has been used after hacks of the Nicaraguan government. On May 14 Synaro posted that Anonymous had taken government websites offline. The recent hack contains the entire health ministry data set of coronavirus test results along with detailed patient information from the beginning of the pandemic in Nicaragua until Aug. 10.
After extensive verification of the database, Ramirez and a group of researchers he is working with concluded that “from day one they were misrepresenting and misreporting COVID-19 in Nicaragua in a completely intentional way,” Ramirez said. “The spread was allowed to continue freely when cases were at the moment present in the whole country. It is a completely erratic decision of the government not to inform the people of Nicaragua about how the COVID was spreading when it was spreading. They used the chance to manipulate the information to give the sensation that the government is in control.”
On Aug. 11, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health (MINSA) reported 3,413 confirmed cases of COVID-19 while their own leaked database showed 10,524 confirmed cases the previous day; 52% of tests were positive. A high positivity rate indicates that testing isn’t widespread enough to capture the true extent of the virus, and the World Health Organization recommends that countries have below 5% before easing quarantine measures.
The Nicaraguan government has not addressed the hack or responded to the data. MINSA officials did not respond to emails requesting comment.