SDMC: Essential services personnel exempted from quarantine upon return to Sarawak

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Douglas Uggah Embas

KUCHING: Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has exempted essential services personnel returning to Sarawak from mandatory quarantine, said its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

Uggah said people like judges, magistrates, state government officials or ministers were considered carrying out essential services for the state.

“We have a procedure where some of the services are considered essential services. For example judges or magistrates, some of our civil servants, some state government officers and ministers who have to carry out duties in Kuala Lumpur and back, those essential services are exempted from quarantine.

“But they have to be tested (for Covid-19) time and again. I myself have been tested three times,” Uggah told reporters during a press conference today.

SDMC requires all Sarawakians coming back into the state to be quarantined for 14 days in hotels, where they will also be tested for Covid-19 before they are allowed to return home.

Earlier today DAP Senator Alan Ling told The Borneo Post that he was exempted from the home quarantine after returning from Kuala Lumpur for an official working trip on May 21.

However he said he voluntarily took a drive-through Covid-19 swab test at Miri Health Clinic today for added precaution and isolating himself from the rest of his family members since returning from Kuala Lumpur.

“Although the swab test was not required of me as I was duly exempted, it is better to ensure I am safe from the virus so that there would be no risk of spreading the unwanted virus to the public and my beloved family,” he said, adding that his swab test result will only be know after two or three days.