By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Oct 14: Police permit is now required to enter Sarawak from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas announced that travellers will need to submit the police permit when applying to enter the state via EnterSarawak app prior to their journey.
“Those travelling between states from KLIA to Kuching and Kuching to KLIA, as well as between Kuching to Kota Kinabalu, will now require a permit from the police before starting their journey,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 situation in Sarawak today.
Uggah, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister, said that the National Security Council (NSC) made this decision to tighten inter-state travel given the spike in Covid-19 cases in Peninsula Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan.
Meanwhile, he emphasised that SDMC is always ready to assist Sabah if there are any requests from the NSC as well as the Ministry of Health (MOH).
“But at the same time, we must also secure our capacity and manpower as we cannot predict the (Covid-19) situation. Sarawak must be prepared,” he said.
Currently, Uggah informed that Sarawak is preparing to upgrade the state’s testing capacity for Covid-19 from 2,000 to 3,000 per day with an aim to have the test result out in 24-hours.
“We are also strengthening our contact tracing team to ensure that we will be able to, in a speedy manner, identified the close contact and run tests.
“These are some of of the strategies to ensure we can curb the spread of the virus and contain it. We will prepare Sarawak for any eventualities in the future,” he added.
Meanwhile, State Health Department deputy director Dr Rosemawati Ariffin revealed that Sarawak had so far sent 19 healthcare staff including nurses, assistant environmental health officers, assistant medical officers to Sabah.
“We will look into the requests and instructions from Sabah through MOH. We will see the situation whether to send more staff over,” she added.—DayakDaily
