KUCHING, July 15: Three new Covid-19 cases, all of which are local transmissions, were recorded in Kuching and Samarahan today, taking the state’s tally of positive cases to 583 and 18 deaths.
The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) in a statement, disclosed that cases 581 and 582 are from Kuching while case 583 is from Samarahan.
Case 581 is a foreign man working as a project engineer for a local company in Kuching. He started to experience a sore throat on July 12 and underwent rT-PCR swabs for Covid-19 at a private hospital on July 14. The lab test result for nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs returned positive for Covid-19 on the same day.
Case 582 involved a health officer working in a private hospital in Kuching. The patient was asymptomatic and underwent a test for Covid-19 on July 14 and the result returned positive on the same day.
Case 583 is a local man residing at Kota Samarahan and working as an engineer in the same company with case 581. He did not show any symptoms when undergoing health screening at a private hospital. The swab tests on July 14 returned positive on the same day.
“All three cases were found to have resulted from local transmissions as there was no travel history or (records) that they returned from overseas.
“The cases are still being investigated. Contact tracing involving family members and workplaces are currently being carried out,” SDMC revealed.
With one locally transmitted case recorded in Samarahan today, the district’s Covid-19 green status has been changed to yellow.
This means two districts in Sarawak are currently Covid-19 yellow zones (with 40 or fewer Covid-19 cases), namely Kuching and Samarahan.
Meanwhile, there were no recoveries reported and as such, the total number of recovered cases in Sarawak is maintained at 554 or 95.03 per cent of total positive cases so far.
“As of today, 11 patients are being treated in hospitals throughout the state with none admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or requiring respiratory support,” SDMC added.
There are eight patients being treated in Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), one in Sibu Hospital and two in Bintulu Hospital.
“The state also registered 22 more Person-Under-Investigation (PUI) cases today while 18 cases are still awaiting laboratory test results,” SDMC reported.
There were 69 more Persons-Under-Surveillance (PUS) checked into identified hotels to undergo compulsory 14-day quarantines.
As of today, there are a total of 556 individuals undergoing quarantine in nine hotels throughout the state. — DayakDaily
