KUCHING, July 25: Community leaders who fail to ensure compliance with standard operating procedure (SOP) especially in funeral ceremonies and social activities in their longhouses or villages will be compounded.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said community leaders carry responsibilities to ensure the wellbeing of their people after all.
Noting that a few longhouse chiefs had been issued RM2,000 compounds each for SOP violation, he reminded rural folks not to be complacent even though many of them have been vaccinated.
He urged the people to be extra vigilant especially with the active presence of the Delta variant in Sarawak now.
“It is of absolute importance for the SOP to be observed, especially at funeral gatherings and social activities which will gather crowd. In the case of any funeral wake, the longhouse chief concerned needs to inform the district office.
“This is to allow crowd control measure to be enforced as such an occasion is very fertile ground for the virus to spread like in the notorious Pasai Cluster, the biggest cluster yet in Sarawak,” Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, said at a community policing workshop at Spaoh yesterday (July 24).
His text of speech was read by political secretary to the Prime Minister Dr Richard Rapu at the event.
Uggah added the Pasai Cluster that originated from a Sibu longhouse in December, 2020 had resulted in 2,693 positive cases and 29 fatalities when the virus spread to 58 other longhouses.
He added that 22 clusters had surfaced due to funeral gatherings across the State with 4,466 positive cases and 35 deaths so far. — DayakDaily
