By Karen Bong
KUCHING, May 19: Sarawak has recorded no new Covid-19 infections for the sixth consecutive day with two more patients discharged today.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said that Sarawak maintained the state tally of positive cases at 544 and 17 deaths.
“The two recoveries are one each from Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) and Hospital Sibu.
“As such, Sarawak recorded 437 recoveries or 80.33 per cent of total positive cases,” he told a daily press conference on Covid-19 here today.
Addressing public doubts over zero Covid case in Sarawak due to no testing, state health director Dr Chin Zin Hing revealed that as of 12 noon of May 18, Sarawak has sampled 33,530 individuals, with a total of 45,378 swabs taken for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.
“The positive rate is 1.62 per cent, which is in line with the rate for Malaysia at 1.53 per cent.
“According to World Health Organisation (WHO), if we have done all the tests and the positive rate is less than 10 per cent, it means that we are (doing enough) testing,” he said, adding that testings are still ongoing with focus on students and returnees currently.
Making comparison on the number of test between Malaysia and Sarawak, Dr Chin explained that 13.8 per 1,000 population in Malaysia had been tested with PCR while Sarawak was 11.2.
“As such, we are testing quite adequately but of course we still have to continue testing to detect any cases as soon as possible,” he added.
Meanwhile, 89 patients are being treated in hospitals throughout the state with only one patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) as of today.
Of the total 544 cases in Sarawak, Uggah disclosed that 21 cases were imported from overseas with 10 cases from Indonesia, four from England and one case each from Holland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Russia, USA, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.
“A total of 49 cases were imported from other states in Malaysia in which 39 cases were linked to the Seri Petaling cluster including seven in Debak, Betong.
“For the Kuching Conference cluster, a total of 68 cases (out of 190 cases) were detected outside Kuching including 55 cases from Samarahan, Serian (9), Miri (2) and one case each from Simanggang and Bintulu,” he explained.
Uggah pointed out that the infection chain for the two clusters has stopped but the public is advised to avoid interstate or inter-district movement to prevent the transmission of the disease into Sarawak especially the rural areas.
“Together we can play an important role in protecting Sarawak from the second wave of Covid-19,” he added.
Sarawak, he continued, also recorded 31 more person-under-investigation (PUI) cases today while 26 cases are still awaiting laboratory test results.
“There are 510 more person-under-surveillance (PUS) have been checked in to identified hotels to undergo a compulsory 14-day quarantine. A total of 5,882 PUS have completed quarantine,” he said.—DayakDaily
