State govt urged to enforce full contact tracing

KOTA KINABALU: United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation (Upko) president Datuk Seri Wilfred Madius Tangau has called on the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS)led State Government to assert its autonomy to enforce full contact tracing.

“In response to the federal Ministry of Health’s (MOH) decision of implementing a reduced number of test samples for Covid-19 clusters, I urgently implore to the state government to assert their autonomy to continue to test on all contacts who have been exposed to the virus within an identified cluster,” said Wilfred in a statement on Tuesday.

The Tuaran Member of Parliament (MP) opined that the decision to only assess a certain percentage of symptomatic individuals and disregard asymptomatic people is an act of imprudence as evidence throughout the period of reign for this pandemic has shown that the virus strain can also be present in asymptomatic individuals.

As a result, Wilfred pointed out the likelihood for undetected carriers to continue spreading this virus is increased and a colossal outbreak would be imminent.

“The Sabah government must not follow in the footsteps of the Federal Government’s decision of limited contact tracing procedures.

“Our state’s borders are porous to foreigners due to the very long coastline as well as the existence of ‘ jalan tikus’ (rat trails) along the Indonesian and Philippine borders,” he stressed.

“Decision-makers in Putrajaya cannot assume every part of Malaysia to be like Klang Valley, where police roadblocks are enough to stop inter-state and inter-district travels. In Sabah, how do we set up roadblocks on South China Sea and Sulu Sea?” he asked further.

The former Deputy Chief Minister said that abiding Putrajaya’s one-size-fits-all policy on contact tracing would mean that Sabahans would be extremely vulnerable to the threat of imported Covid-19 cases.

“Can’t the State Government reject a flawed policy that might be lethal to our community’s safety?

“I strongly believe that post-Covid Malaysia needs a new deal on federalism beyond even the confines of the Malaysian Agreement 1963 (MA63). Matters like Health, Education, Policing and Transportation must no longer stay as federal ma ers.