By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Mar 4: As of today, there are still 57 longhouses in Sarawak under lockdown where the residents are forbidden to leave while outsiders, not allowed to enter.
Since 2021, a total of 265 longhouses were placed under lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.
In a press conference today, State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said 29,572 samples were taken from these longhouses affected by Covid-19 and 25,540 samples had returned negative.
The rate of positive cases, according to Uggah, is slightly more than two per cent.
Meanwhile, there are still 1,727 samples pending testing results.
In 2020, even though there were Covid-19 cases in Sarawak, these cases were mainly found in the urban areas. Longhouses which are situated away from city centres were spare from its threats, leaving the majority of Sarawak made up by rural areas, to stay as Covid-19 green zones.
Entering 2021, however, cases started to emerge in longhouses in Sarawak.
On Jan 6, the first two cases sprang from interior longhouses in the interior were from Rumah Sungai Putong and Bui Panjang respectively, causing both longhouses to be placed under lockdown with immediate effect on Jan 7.
The lockdown of Rumah Sg Putong and Bui Panjang was effective and there was no spread of the pandemic within the longhouse or the area where the longhouses are located. This was however, not the case involving the eight longhouses at Pasai Siong, Sibu.
At Pasai Siong, a Covid-19 index case returned from Johore to attend a funeral. It was found out later that the case was a super spreader who infected many of those attended the same funeral. The eight longhouses in Pasai Siong were placed under lockdown on Jan 8.
Sarawak started to register high number of longhouse Covid-19 positive cases following the return of funeral attendants to their respective longhouses.
Since then, various longhouses across Sarawak started to report positive Covid-19 cases where longhouse lockdown continues to make it to the headlines until today. — DayakDaily
