Tiong: Don’t speculate, authorities will not conceal extent of Covid-19 situation in Bintulu

Tiong (wearing cap) joins enforcement team in carrying out daily inspection to ensure SOP compliance.

KUCHING, May 5: Authorities will not conceal the extent of the Covid-19 situation in Bintulu as factual data is being released on a daily basis.

Highlighting this, Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing thus urged public especially netizens not to blindly speculate or make unfounded allegations about efforts of frontliners in combating the Covid-19 pandemic in Bintulu.

“(Covid-19) testings by health authorities have not slowed down but continued to be carried out aggressively across Bintulu District despite the number of Covid-19 cases has decreased in the past two day.

“Even when some quarters say that any decrease in the data is a good thing, I will only believe the anti-epidemic work is successful when the increase in a single day becomes zero,” he said in a statement posted on his Facebook page today.

He was responding to netizens who questioned whether the decline in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases over the previous two days was due to the Labour Day weekend.

Bintulu registered the highest daily infections with 128 cases out of the 620 cases recorded in Sarawak yesterday (May 4).

With cases declining in urban areas, Tiong, who is also the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to the People’s Republic of China, observed many people have begun to take things lightly and warned that this would allow infections to bounce back if people let their guards down.

“Everyone must take preventing Covid-19 as a top priority by exercising their personal responsibility to abide by the SOPs (standard operating procedures),” he reminded.

As the Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration is fast approaching, Tiong had in a meeting two days ago appealed to village and community chiefs to cooperate closely in ensuring that the festive celebrations will not derail gallant efforts in curbing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those outside of the zone or Bintulu District are advised not to “balik kampung” for this year’s celebrations which fall on May 13.

Village and community chiefs have been urged to advise the Malay community in their respective areas to not gather or visit one another during the festive celebration. — DayakDaily

Editor’s Note: This news story has been updated to clarify that 128 Covid-19 cases recorded in Bintulu was yesterday (May 4)’s figure and not today (May 5).