Dr Kelvin Yii
KUCHING (June 11): Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii said that the Movement Control Order (MCO) may need to be extended in areas where the Covid-19 infective rate (R0) is high and hospital capacity is full.
The Democratic Action Party (DAP) lawmaker said based on the current known data, the areas in Sarawak recording high Covid-19 R0 included Kuching, Miri, Sibu and Bintulu.
“To make the decision whether to extend the current MCO or not needs to be based on several health parameters in each specific district and even sub-district.
“Such parameters will include the R0, positive rate to determine amount of testing, and also hospital and healthcare capacity in the area.
“Based on the current known data, in my view, we may need to extend the MCO in targeted areas especially in Kuching, Miri, Sibu, Bintulu or areas where the infective rate is high and hospital capacity is full,” he said when contacted by The Borneo Post today.
According to Yii, the enforcement of the MCO is not the solution to the problem but gives some breathing space for frontliners and hospitals to cope with the pandemic.
He said this is so that the frontliners and hospitals would not have to make the decision on who to treat and save, and who not to.
“But even if they extend the MCO, they have to increase testing in all these areas, to detect and isolate all possible cases especially asymptomatic cases.
“If we do not do that, even if cases dropped during MCO, once it is lifted, the cases will go up again and we cannot keep relying on MCO which has a huge economic cost,” he added.
The current MCO, which was enforced from May 29 is slated to end on June 14.
The daily Covid-19 infections in Sarawak have been above 400 cases in the last couple of weeks.