By Ling Hui
KUCHING, July 12: Two new Covid-19 cases emerged today in Sarawak after two consecutive days of new reported cases.
The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) in a press statement revealed the first case involved a 44-year-old local woman who went for an examination on her own at Borneo Medical Centre (BMC) yesterday, with test results confirmed positive today.
She was admitted to the isolation ward in Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) and her prior whereabouts are being traced to find out the cause of infection and other close contacts with her.
The committee also disclosed that the second new case—the 579th case for Sarawak—a male, was a close contact with the 575th case reported on July 10. He was a colleague of the woman who worked in an engineering consultancy company and who was later classified as a severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) case.
He underwent screening at BMC as well yesterday and tested positive via a rapid test polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.
These two linked confirmed Covid-19 cases (cases 579 and 575), SDMC revealed, marks the formation of a new cluster.
With today’s new cases, the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in Sarawak is now 579 cases.
Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 deaths in Sarawak remains at 18.
There were 45 new Person-Under-Investigation (PUI) cases reported today, with five still awaiting laboratory results.
On a related issue, SDMC revealed there were 34 Persons-Under-Surveillance (PUS) who were checked into hotels in Sarawak for quarantine.
There is currently a total of 435 individuals under quarantine in 11 hotels throughout Sarawak while 18,393 PUS have completed their 14-day quarantine. — DayakDaily
