By Karen Bong and Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Jan 7: State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) will review the standard operating procedures (SOP) for social activities following a Covid-19 case which emerged from karaoke outlets.
Its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas noted that Sarawak has eased some of the restrictions under the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO).
“We have allowed room-based karaoke to operate but now we discovered there was a case spread from there so we will review the SOP for social activities.
“We are also working out the SOP for mass assembly which is currently limited to 200 people or half the capacity of a venue,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 update today.
Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, emphasised that restrictions which have been relaxed needed to be reviewed as a lot of spread in infections occurred due to social activities as what happened in Semenanjung Malaysia.
“This is why there was a Christmas Cluster in Sabah and it seemed that Sarawak also has a little bit of Christmas cluster in Meradong – Mador Cluster in which the patient returning from Johor celebrated Christmas while under home quarantine that led to several cases later,” he explained.
Meanwhile, SDMC had eased the restrictions for social activities and allowed room-based karaokes in shopping malls to reopen on Dec 23.
But the permission did not include KTVs, night clubs, pubs, and bistros which are not allowed to resume businesses yet.
On Jan 5, Uggah also announced that only 50 per cent of venue capacity was allowed for mass gathering for official and social events as for open space, only 200 persons were allowed but subjected to the size of the venue space and physical distancing. — DayakDaily
