KUCHING, March 19: Sarawak People’s Aspiration Party (Aspirasi) president Lina Soo says the Covid-19 pandemic is a ‘life and death’ situation and any citizen who defies government policy to attend mass gatherings is on a ‘suicide mission’.
She also urged Sarawakians to cooperate with the Sarawak government’s efforts to contain and mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic.
Soo asserted that Malaysia has already advanced to community transmission of Covid-19 with clusters formed around church and Muslim gatherings.
It has been earlier reported that, the recent Tabligh event at Sri Petaling had caused more than 500 infections, the biggest ciuster so far in the country.
“This may be the tip of the iceberg as it is alleged that some of these participants had not reported and refused to go for testing, and may have gone on to be spreaders, unknown to the community,” according to Soo in a statement here today
Soo proposed that any Malaysian attending the Tablighi Jama’at event in Sulawesi be quarantined for three weeks, as the Covid-19 incubation period without symptoms is known to have taken up more than 20 days.
According to a news reports, 83 Malaysians have travelled to Sulawesi to attend the gathering.
“To deflect the infection curve, Sarawak must close its borders and prohibit Sarawakians from leaving Sarawak and non-Sarawakians must not be allowed to enter Sarawak from Malaya, Sabah or Brunei as sufficient time had been given to Sarawak residents to expedite their movements in response to the storm clouds gathering over the fast-spreading coronavirus,” she added.
Soo also urged the Sarawak government to stop all movement of its MPs between Sarawak and Putrajaya.
“Already two MPs have been infected and upon return risk spreading the infection to party members and supporters.”
The two Sarawak MPs who have been confirmed positive for the deadly coronavirus are Sarikei MP Wong Ling Biu and Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii. Both are now hospitalised in Sibu Hospital and Sarawak General Hospital respectively.
Minister of Housing and Local Government Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian told the media on March 17 that Wong has been intubated to ease breathing.
On a related issue, Soo claimed that Sarawak’s healthcare system is very weak due to meagre allocation of federal funds to Sarawak over the years, and will collapse if Covid-19 cases were to increase exponentially.
“Healthcare systems in South East Asia are fragile, and the Sarawak government must pull out all the stops, plug any possible leakage, and spare no effort by any means possible to eradicate Covid-19 in Sarawak, even to the point of absolute isolation from the rest of the world,” added Soo. — DayakDaily
