By Ling Hui
KUCHING, April 19: The mandatory 14-day quarantine order for those entering Sarawak from overseas, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan will be maintained as it has proven to be effective, having prevented a total of 330 Covid-19 cases from entering the local community since January 2021.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said the “Trace, Test, Quarantine and Isolate” policy including the compulsory quarantine period will be continued to prevent imported cases from infecting the local community.
“Since January, the 14-day quarantine policy had captured 60 positive cases returning from overseas (Import A) and 270 positive cases returning from other states (Import B). They were all in quarantine at hotels,” he said.
On another issue regarding the debates surrounding whether to impose Movement Control Order (MCO) or Conditional MCO (CMCO), Abang Johari said the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has done its fair share of evaluation on the ground and found CMCO to be a more appropriate measure.
He said SDMC’s experience with MCO in Sibu earlier had been bogged down by a number of issues especially in enforcement efforts which did not contribute to the curbing of Covid-19 transmissions in the district but raised other problems.
“Simply implementing MCO for Sarawak will burden many industries and destroy the livelihoods of many.
“However, there is also a need for us to take drastic measures to cut the chain of infection given our limited healthcare resources and manpower reaching fatigue level,” he said during a special press conference at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here today.
Thus, he asserted that Targeted Enhanced MCO (TEMCO) would also continue to be implemented in selected areas with outbreak potential, which had proven to be successful in containing the spread of the novel coronavirus in longhouses, neighbourhoods and workplaces.
Also present at the press conference were Uggah and Minister for Local Government and Housing Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian. — DayakDaily
