KUCHING: All Sarawakians returning from Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan have to undergo a 14-day quarantine at designated hotels.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said these groups would be quarantined whenever they arrive at their last destination, either Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu or Miri.
“On day seven of the quarantine period, sample of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab test will be taken from them.
“If the result comes back negative, they will be allowed to go home but must continue to be quarantined at home until the last day of the 14-day quarantine period,” he said at a press conference on the daily Covid-19 update yesterday.
Uggah, who is also the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman, said there was a change of policy as announced by the committee on April 17, where these category of Sarawakians are allowed to be quarantined at home.
“However, decision that forced us to come back to the previous policy, is because we have a case of one individual returning from Indonesia through Kuala Lumpur International Airport and this case is tested positive in Kuching,” he said.
He added in Miri, there was also one returning from overseas and one returning from Kuala Lumpur, these were tested positive.
“Can you imagine if the three of them are not quarantined and they can be walking around with them being positive and can cause a lot of havoc.
“As a result, we come back to our earlier policy that all Sarawakians returning from these states to be quarantined for 14 days,” he pointed out.
Uggah also said with immediate effect, all domestic passengers (within Sarawak) were required to fill out the e-Health Declaration form provided on the Covid-19 MCO website.
“From time to time, SDMC will continue to review the various decisions that we have made, it is very organic… So, the polices have to respond to any event that can guide us to make sure that our strategy to cut the chain of the Covid-19 spread will be effective,” he said.
