KUCHING: Members of the business community in Sibu were told to put their business on the back burner and instead focus on joint efforts to flatten the Covid-19 curve.
“Think of the disastrous consequence of Covid-19 first and not when you can reopen your respective businesses,” said Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) chairman Clarence Ting.
He added: “I know it’s not fair for some of you, especially those who are not in the essential services as you are not allowed to open for business.
“But let us look at the bright side of it. If our Covid-19 situation continues to worsen … and the number of positive cases continues to go up because we do not observe the standard operating procedures (SOPs), what kind of business are we going to have in Sibu?”
Ting pointed out that the division had seen a drastic rise in positive Covid-19 cases over the past three and the half months.
So, let us work together to flatten the curve of positive cases, he exhorted.
“Sibu is placed under the CMCO with special restrictions for five days starting from Wednesday night. During this period, let us all work together in efforts to stop the chain of infection. Let us first of all strictly observe the SOPs as instructed by the District Disaster Management Committee (DDMC),” he said in a Facebook Live chat today.
He stressed that the restrictions under the CMCO were enforced to reduce people’s movement to the minimum in the hope it could also help to reduce the rate of infection.
“Nobody wants what DDMC is doing. Not me, not DDMC, not the YBs including the opposition YBs in Sibu. In short, nobody wants it.
“But if we don’t do it, there’s no way we can flatten the curve of infection. And this means only two things are going to happen. One, nobody from outside will dare to come to town to do business and two – our (Sibu) hospital will be overcrowded.”
According to Ting, as it was, Sibu hospital was already operating beyond its capacity.
He said just the other day he saw pictures posted on social media of children sleeping on the hospital floor, while waiting for empty beds.
“The picture posted only showed the children but I was made to understand, there are more than just children waiting for empty beds.”
Ting said the CMCO with special restrictions was earlier confined to only seven zones but had to be extended to the whole of Sibu division following the continued spike in positive Covid-19 cases.
