By Karen Bong
KUCHING, July 22: Sarawak reported nine new Covid-19 cases in Kuching today, bringing the state’s tally of positive cases to 628 and 18 deaths.
The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) in a statement revealed that of the new cases, two were imported, one is linked to the Sentosa Cluster, three are from the Stutong Market Cluster, one confirmed from random screening of returning teachers, one is a close contact of Case 587, and one is a close contact of Case 574.
The first imported case involves a local woman with travel history of visiting South Korea. She arrived at Kuching International Airport (KIA) on July 10 after transiting through Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on July 9.
She was screened using the RTK Antigen test at KLIA for which the result returned negative.
The case, who was asymptomatic, was sent to a hotel to undergo a compulsory 14-day quarantine upon arrival in KIA.
She had been admitted to the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) for further treatment while contact tracing and further investigation on the cause of infection are being carried out.
The second imported case involves a local woman, who is a student at Kursk Medical University, Russia. She returned to Sarawak from Russia via London, United Kingdom to KLIA on July 6.
Her RTK Antigen test in KLIA returned negative. Upon arrival at KIA, the student who was also asymptomatic, was sent for compulsory quarantine at a hotel.
As per Sarawak’s quarantine standard operating procedure (SOP) for returnees from overseas, both cases were swabbed on the second day of their quarantine for which results were negative but their rT-PCR tests on the 10th day had returned positive for Covid-19 infections.
Meanwhile, four cases, all of them locals, were detected from the contact tracing conducted among the active clusters.
One case was linked to Case 602 under the Sentosa Cluster while three cases were from the Stutong Market Cluster.
As for the random screening, one case was detected among teachers returning from holidays. He boarded the flight from Kota Bahru to KIA on July 4. His test done on July 21 at a public health clinic returned positive. He was asymptomatic.
As for close contact tracing on individuals related to Covid-19 cases, one case detected was linked to Case 587 who boarded the same flight from KLIA to KIA on July 15 while the other case was linked to Case 574 (case with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection). Both cases did not show any symptoms.
Meanwhile, there were no recoveries reported today and as such, the total number of recovered cases in Sarawak is maintained at 556 or 88.54 per cent of total positive cases so far.
As of today, 54 patients were still receiving treatment in hospitals throughout the state with none admitted to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) or requiring respiratory support.
There were 49 patients in SGH, four in Bintulu Hospital and one in Sungai Buloh Hospital.
Three districts in Sarawak were labelled Covid-19 yellow zones (40 or fewer Covid-19 cases), namely Kuching, Samarahan and Bau.
The state also registered 21 more Person-Under-Investigation (PUI) cases today while 12 are awaiting laboratory test results.
In addition, 29 more Persons-Under-Surveillance (PUS) have been checked into identified hotels to undergo compulsory 14-day quarantines.
As of today, there were a total number of 504 individuals undergoing quarantine in nine hotels throughout the state. — DayakDaily
