KUCHING: Sarawak recorded nine new positive Covid-19 cases in Kuching (five) and Bintulu (four) today, bringing the total number of positive cases in the state to 751.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said out of the five cases reported in Kuching, four of them were security personnel who have just returned after carrying out their duties during the Sabah state election.
“The cases left on the morning of Sept 25 and returned to Sarawak using a special flight via the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) field in Kuching on Sept 28.
“Upon arrival, they were placed under a 14-day quarantine order in Pulapol. All of these cases also underwent the first screening test on Sept 29 and the results were negative.
“They repeated the test on Oct 8 and the rT-PCR test results came back positive on Oct 10. All these cases show no signs and symptoms and they have been admitted to Sarawak General Hospital (SGH),” he said at a press conference on Covid-19 update today.
Another case reported in Kuching involved an Indonesian man who underwent a health and Covid-19 screening before entering work at a private hospital in Kuching on Oct 9. His test result was found to be positive on the same day.
“The case is still under further investigation and contact tracing for this case is underway. Until the completion of investigation, this case is categorised as a local infection case because there was no record of admission of this case to Sarawak,” he explained.
On four cases reported in Bintulu, they were all close contacts to Case 733. All of them were screened on Oct 9 and their rT-PCR test results came back positive on the same day.
“The first case was a clerk of an insurance company who had close contact to Case 733. This case started to show signs and symptoms starting Oct 5.
“The other two cases are the children of Case 733 who are still in school and another is still studying at a local public university. Both cases are in-house contact to the index case. One of them started having a fever on Oct 8 while the other did not show any signs and symptoms.
“Meanwhile, the last case is a grandchild of Case 733 who had contact while visiting the case’s house on Oct 1. The case also showed no early signs and symptoms,” Uggah elaborated.
He mentioned that all cases have been admitted to Bintulu Hospital for further treatment. Contact tracing for these cases is still ongoing.
Uggah also announced that there was one new recovery and discharged case, bringing the number of recoveries and discharged cases to 685 or 91.21 percent.
With the addition of nine cases, there is a total of 47 cases that are still receiving treatment at hospitals — 28 in Sarawak General Hospital, eight in Miri Hospital, seven in Bintulu Hospital and four in Sibu Hospital.
The death toll in the state remains at 19 or 2.53 percent as no deaths were reported.
Meanwhile, 23 new person-under-investigation (PUI) cases were reported and three are still awaiting laboratory test results.
