By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Nov 8: All 74 journalists who signed up to attend the Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) session from Nov 9 to 13 have tested negative for Covid-19.
These journalists working in Kuching are from various news agencies and organisations.
At the beginning of last week, all news agencies were notified that each media organisation is only allowed to send one journalist to attend DUN physically while the rest may monitor proceedings online due to the recent spike in Covid-19 cases in Sarawak.
Yesterday, the journalists were informed in the late afternoon that those opting to attend the DUN in person must undergo Covid-19 swab tests.
The instruction sent the local press into a frenzy as they were given a very short time to submit the names of those who will be sent to cover DUN in person, and later, rushed to fill in the necessary forms before the deadline.
The journalists were then informed that they were given a short window of 8am to 10am to be swabbed at Normah Medical Specialist Centre today.
Many journalists arrived at the medical centre before 8am, hoping to get the tests done before rushing to their morning functions.
At 8.15am, a crowd of media personnel had already gathered at the temporary booths near the parking lots, but no medical personnel were seen setting up equipment or preparing for the arrivals.
It was only later that the press were told to return to their vehicles for drive-thru testing.
A queue of cars quickly formed as media personnel scrambled to get in line. It took approximately 5 to 10 minutes for each swab to be taken, forcing those at the back of the queue to endure long waiting times.
Due to the delay, some journalists were forced to abandon the queue to rush to cover their functions.
All the swab tests returned negative today, but there were 10 results whose owners could not be identified. — DayakDaily
