KUCHING, Aug 1: The State Health Department (JKN Sarawak) is taking extra precautions in managing suspected Covid-19 cases that have been referred and admitted to the hospitals by conducting further investigations as well as repeat tests to ensure cases are truly free of the virus.
State Health director Dr Chin Zin Hing highlighted this in responding to complaints and concerns from the public including Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong on social media of whether the daily number of reported confirmed Covid-19 cases in Sarawak truly reflected the situation in the state.
“JKN Sarawak is aware of the complaints that there are individuals who have been referred and hospitalised and is associated with a positive Covid-19 case but not accounted as a case reported to the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC),” he said in a statement today.
In addition, Dr Chin pointed out that the suspected cases were referred and admitted to the hospital wards to ensure that they do not spread the virus to others, especially family members within the same household if they were to test positive of Covid-19.
“While in the hospital wards, they were also isolated and not warded together with confirmed positive cases to prevent virus transmission in the hospital,” he added.
Meanwhile, Yong, in her Facebook page’s post yesterday (July 31), claimed that her friend’s nephew was admitted to the hospital on July 28 for quarantine due to Covid-19 and all the family members with close contact to this nephew had also undergone Covid-19 test at designated clinic and were now observing home quarantine.
She however questioned as to why to date, the friend’s nephew case was not reflected in the daily official report by the department or SDMC.
Yong thus sought explanation from the authorities as to whether such a particular case was categorised differently.
On the fluctuating number of Covid-19 cases reported in Sarawak in the past week, Dr Chin emphasised that the situation was due to aggressive contact tracing and sampling activities being carried out among active clusters in Kuching.
“JKN Sarawak reported to SDMC that there were 25 confirmed Covid-19 cases on July 28 but no cases were reported on July 29.
“The high number of cases reported on July 28 was due to aggressive tracing and sampling activities conducted on July 26 and 27 involving active clusters in Kuching,” he said.
As a result of these activities, Dr Chin added that many members of the public among those identified have been swabbed for testing in which a number of them were detected positive of Covid-19.
Expressing gratitude to the public for their cooperation in fighting the pandemic, JKN Sarawak again advised people not to take things for granted or let their guard down but continue to be vigilant to help curb the Covid-19 transmission.
“Ensure that all guidelines, health advice and standard operating procedure (SOP) issued are being adhered to at all times,” Dr Chin reminded. —DayakDaily
