Only 500 Covid-19 tests daily in Sibu? That’s a ‘big fat lie’, says Dr Annuar

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Dr Annuar Rapaee

SIBU (Feb 16): The claim that the government only carried out a limited number of tests for Covid-19 in Sibu is a ‘big fat lie’, said Sibu Division Disaster Management Committee coordinator Dr Annuar Rapaee.

He pointed out that a total of 51,640 swab tests, which is an average of 1,435 tests per day, have been carried out here since Jan 10 until yesterday after the emergence of the Pasai Cluster on Jan 9.

“For those saying we are doing 500 tests per day, that is only a big fat lie. Please get your facts right because the frontliners are working very hard.

“Of course there was zero swab done on Feb 12 due to Chinese New Year. There are some days, we do more tests and some days we do less tests.

“The highest we did per day was 2,700 tests. Yesterday, we conducted 2,347 tests through active case detection (ACD) done outside Sibu Hospital,” he said during a Facebook Live discussion hosted by Sibu Municipal Council chairman Clarence Ting today.

Dr Annuar explained that 51,640 swab tests for 360,000 populations in Sibu equals 143 tests per 1,000 people here. Other countries, he said, conducted less tests than in Sibu.

“So do not just take crude or absolute numbers because you have to do it by 100,000 or 1,000,000 populations to compare what we do here with the rest of the world.

“Only then you will know how much Sibu has done, how much the government has done and how much has not been done,” he said.

He said that they had set up a total of 1,060 beds at Covid-19 treatment and quarantine centres (PKRC) in Sibu when the bed occupancy rate at the Sibu Hospital Covid-19 ward reached at an alarming level of 86 per cent at the time of the Pasai Cluster outbreak.

He said about 50 to 60 per cent of the beds at the PKRC are now occupied.

Dr Annuar added that the government had spent RM8.48 million to outsource lab tests in private laboratories in Sarawak and Kuala Lumpur for 42,424 swab samples in order to get results faster.

“If someone said we have not done much, I cannot agree at all. We have spent a lot of money only for the tests. That’s excluding hotel quarantine and food for those under quarantine,” he said.

Sibu district is the epicentre of the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the state so far, contributing 2,539 cases and 33 fatalities to the state tally of 6,832 cases and 61 deaths yesterday.

The Pasai Cluster, the largest of 21 active cluster in the state, has 2,576 cases throughout the state as of yesterday.