Covid-19: Sarawak still green zone despite recording one imported case today

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KUCHING (Aug 14): Sarawak remains a green zone despite recording one new imported case of Covid-19 today, said State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.

“The latest case involves a local man from Mukah studying in Rubat Fatah Seon College and University, Yemen. He boarded Yemenia Airline from Yemen to Cairo, Egypt on Aug 1,” he said during a press conference at the old DUN complex at Petrajaya here today.

Uggah said the patient took a flight to Kuala Lumpur International Airport from Cairo on the same day and returned to the state via Sibu Airport on Aug 3.

The patient tested negative for Covid-19 after undergoing antigen rapid test kit (RTK) test on Aug 2 at Kuala Lumpur.

“Once arriving at Sibu airport, the patient was brought to undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine at a hotel there. The patient did not exhibit any symptoms associated with Covid-19,” he said.

Uggah added reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rT-PCR) test had been conducted on the patient on Aug 5 while being quarantined in the hotel and laboratory result came back negative for the virus on Aug 6.

“However, the patient took a second rT-PCR test on Aug 12 after being quarantined for 10 days and the laboratory result from the Sibu Hospital laboratory on Aug 13 had shown him tested positive for Covid-19.”

Uggah said the patient was then admitted to Sibu Hospital on Aug 13 for further treatments.

“Contacts tracing and investigations are currently ongoing and this case has been classified as imported,” he said, pointing out this was the third imported case involving Malaysians returning to the state from Yemen.

This latest case brought the total cumulative tally of positive cases in the state to 682.

Overall, Uggah said there were nine active Covid-19 clusters in the state, namely the Engineering Firm cluster with eight cases, Mambong cluster (7), Medical Centre cluster (3), Kuching Jetty cluster (2), Stutong Market cluster (7), Sentosa cluster (31), Melbourne PUI cluster (3), Kuching Construction Company cluster (2) and Satok Market cluster (4).

“No Covid-19 patients were discharged today and 96.63 per cent of the total cases in the state or 659 individuals have successful recovered and discharged from hospitals,” he said.

There are only four patients currently receiving treatments in hospital isolation wards and the death toll of the virus remains at 19 or 2.79 per cent of total cases, he added.

“A total of 20 new Person Under Investigation cases have been reported today and two cases are still pending laboratory results.”

Uggah said 48 Person Under Surveillance cases had registered to be quarantined at hotels yesterday and a total of 800 people were currently being quarantined at 16 hotels state-wide.