Sources of Keranji Tabuan and Stutong Clusters remain unknown

Covid-19 file pic

By Ling Hui

KUCHING, Jan 11: Sources of the Keranji Tabuan and Stutong Clusters in Kuching remain unknown.

“For the Keranji and Stutong Clusters in Kuching, we (SDMC) have not been able to track and identify the source,” said State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

In stating this, he expressed fear of illegal immigrants being tested positive for Covid-19 while many others are still moving around in Kuching, either working in fishing boats or in plantations.

However, he said SDMC had been successful in identifying the sources of the other clusters in Sarawak such as the Jelita and Bah Sayap Clusters in Miri, and the two cases involving longhouses in Sri Aman.

“The advantage that we have now is that we know the sources for most of the clusters.

“For example (the Jelita Cluster) in Miri, it was a group coming from Peninsular Malaysia who should have been quarantined in hotels, but somehow they were quarantined at homes.

“It is the same for the Pasai Cluster. The index case came from Johor and she was not quarantined in Sibu hotels but was home quarantined in her longhouse,” he explained during the Covid-19 press conference today.

Uggah pointed out the index case of the Bah Sayap Cluster involved a pilot who went around in Miri without knowing he was positive because his previous test results were negative.

As for the two Covid-19 cases in Sri Aman on Jan 7 that led to the 14-day lockdown of two longhouses, the source was found to be an 85-year-old man who had been visiting Indonesia frequently.

“We found that he had been visiting Indonesia regularly because his longhouse is not far away from the border.

“So this tells us that the source of infection is from that side (Indonesia),” said Uggah. — DayakDaily