Niah folk in uproar over station closure notice

MIRI: A notice of temporary closure of the sole petrol station in Batu Niah has created an uproar in the community over fear of the spread of Covid-19 in their midst.

Posted in Facebook, the notice was to inform the public of the temporary closure of the station because the operator wanted to sanitise it following a staff from Bakong tested positive for Covid-19, connected to the Pasai Cluster in Sibu. Niah sub-district is adjacent to Beluru District which has turned yellow after four new cases were detected in Bakong through direct contact tracing undertaken by the Ministry of Health following a lockdown of Rumah Ramba in Sungai Liam, Bakong.

The lockdown has been extended to four other longhouses yesterday, with Sarawak recording 166 positive cases , the highest since the outbreak started in March last year.

Nerves of the local community were further frayed by misunderstanding of the notice coming after the state disaster management committee classified Miri as a red zone and the bad news coming from neighbouring Bakong, where inter-district travel was already restricted.

Assistant Minister of Women, Community Wellbeing and Early Childhood Development and Bekenu assemblywoman Datuk Rosey Yunus when contacted yesterday over the uproar in Niah said she was informed that the closure for sanitisation was a pro-active move by the station.

“According to the operator, the infected staff has yet to return to work since the end of last year, and was probably infected while in Bakong. The sanitisation was carried out as a precautionary step for peace of mind of customers,” she said.

Residents of Niah are worried when news of the closure went viral in Niah community Facebook page , with many fretting if they had been exposed to the superinfectious Pasai Cluster.

There are two petrol stations at the junction of Miri-Bintulu road frequented by the local community, plantation workers and travellers, and many were jitterywhen the news broke out yesterday.

In the Niah community Facebook page, the Malay translation of the notice in Chinese spread quickly as netizens took notice.

The notice informed customers of the temporary closure of the station for sanitisation after a staff has been infected by Covid-19 related to the group in Bakong under the Pasai Cluster. The operator apologised for the inconvenience caused.

Meanwhile, Rosey advised the public not to spread unverified news to avoid causing unnecessary anxiety.