Khaled Al-Solaiman Okaz Our health officials never cease to astonish us. The health minister, in a press statement published on Sunday, said only two cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) were registered in the Kingdom during the past week. This was a clear indication that the deadly virus was receding in the country and that people need not worry. But, statistics released by the ministry said as many as 34 confirmed cases of coronavirus were registered in the Kingdom during that very week! Whom should we believe in this case: the minister or his ministry? Since coronavirus was first discovered in the Kingdom, different officials have been using various methods of treatment and precautions. However, one thing remained the same. This is the confusing data released to the society. If sparing the society the horrors of panicking was justified, keeping the society in the dark about the real situation could not be justified at all. A local newspaper recently quoted Dr. Ahmed Al-Harsi, chairman of the consultative council of the ministry's command and control center, as saying that the ministry and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) would contact the Yemeni scholar Sheikh Abdul Majeed Al-Zandani who claimed to have discovered a herbal anti-coronavirus medicine. This is really amazing. It is a clear reflection of the ministry's total despair. With all its specialists and researchers, the ministry is resorting to herbal medicine to treat the contagious disease! If memory does not fail me, it is this same Zandani who earlier claimed that he had discovered medicines for HIV and some other lethal diseases. The medicines he claimed to be extremely effective turned out to be completely hopeless. If his claims were true, Zandani would have now been at the top of the experts of three giant medicine companies around the world.