KUCHING, Apr 27: The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has came out with new guidelines for Sarawakians returnees as 12 of them have been tested positive for Covid-19.
SDMC chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas explained that the new guidelines are to ensure that the state government can monitor their movement as well as to prevent and curb the spread of the pandemic in Sarawak.
“Until today, there were 12 positive cases of Covid-19 detected among Sarawakians who returned from either overseas, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah or Labuan.
“Out of the 12 cases, nine cases are in Kuching including eight Sarawakian students who returned from Temboro, Indonesia and one student from the United States.
“There were two cases in Miri which involved a Sarawakian who came back from Singapre and another one who returned from Kuala Lumpur.
“Besides, there was also one case in Sri Aman which involved a man who came back from Badau, Indonesia,” Uggah said during Covid-19 update press conference here today.
Expecting an influx of Sarawakian students from institutions of higher learning and Sarawakians returning back from overseas, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan in the next few weeks, Uggah who is the deputy chief minister said, these students will have to be quarantined at the respective quarantine centres.
Uggah said for students whose final destinations are green zone areas, their swab test will be taken on the 10th day of their quarantine period. If their results came back negative, then they are allowed to go home on the 14th day.
Presently, out of the 40 districts, 29 districts are green zone areas where strict measures to combat Covid-19 are put in place.
For Sarawakians whose final destinations are located in red and yellow zones, they will be given a wristband tag and a stay-home notice.Their swab test will be taken on the 7th day of their quarantine period.
“If the results of the swab test were negative, they will still need to remain at home until the 14th day of the quarantine period,” said Uggah.
On another note, Minister for Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian revealed that the Health Ministry is fully committed to support the State Health Department in fighting Covid-19 following a discussion with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba yesterday.
He said Dr Adham has assured the state government that the Health Ministry will provide 40,000 units of rapid test kits for Covid-19 and two units of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines to Sarawak.
Dr Sim explained that the additional equipment will help to support more testing in all hospitals throughout Sarawak.
He added that currently, the State Health Department has the capacity to provide 2,000 test for Covid-19 daily.— DayakDaily
