By Ling Hui
KUCHING, Jan 4: Four close contacts of patients in the Stutong Cluster are among eight Covid-19 cases reported in Sarawak today.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) said Cases 1,144, 1,145, 1,146 and 1,147 are individuals who have been screened on Jan 2 as they had close contact with the cases reported in the Stutong Cluster in Kuching.
“Case 1,144 is a co-worker of Case 1,118. Cases 1,145 and 1,147 are close contacts with Case 1,119 (index case) while Case 1,146 is a close contact with Case 1,120.
“All of them showed no signs or symptoms of infection and have been admitted into isolation wards in the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) for further treatment.
“These cases have been categorised as local transmission cases as they were infected by local positive cases before this,” it said in a Covid-19 update statement today.
Another local transmission case in Kuching involved a Sarawakian male who was swabbed on Jan 3, before being admitted into one of the private hospitals for treatment.
SDMC revealed that earlier investigations found that Case 1,148 did not have any history of travelling out of Malaysia or been to any Covid-19 high-risk areas in other states for the past one month.
The other three cases in the state are imported cases, with two Import-B cases and one Import-A case.
The two Import-B cases involved one Sarawakian female (Case 1,141) and one Sarawakian male (Case 1,142) who returned from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor respectively.
The Import-A case was the child of Case 1,109, a Sarawakian returnee from Congo who was reported to be positive of Covid-19 on Dec 28.
With eight new cases in Kuching, SDMC said the cumulative number of cases in the state now stands at 1,148.
There are currently two active clusters in the state namely the Stutong Cluster with a total of nine positive cases and the Mador Cluster with eight cases.
The committee also reported zero new recoveries who have been discharged from SGH while 56 patients are still receiving treatment in the hospitals across the state.
“Today, there are eight new person-under-investigation (PUI) cases and zero cases awaiting laboratory test results,” it noted.
There are 721 person-under-surveillance (PUS) who were registered into various hotels across Sarawak to be quarantined, and a total of 4,227 individuals under quarantine in 43 hotels statewide while 47,717 PUS have completed their 14-day quarantine. — DayakDaily
