Sri Petalinglinked new cluster in Kuching

PUTRAJAYA: A new Covid-19 cluster with 37 cases has been identified at Taman BDC in Kuching, Sarawak, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the Taman BDC cluster was linked to an index case from the tabligh assembly cluster at the Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur.

“This (cluster) is linked to the tabligh assembly from where an index case has caused three generations of infection involving family and mosque members and colleagues,” he said a daily Covid-19 media briefing here yesterday.

When asked whether the emergence of this new cluster was linked to any asymptomatic Covid-19 cases, he admitted that there were asymptomatic patients in the country but their percentage was small.

He said that from the tests conducted on 5,164 asymptomatic patients, only five cases or 0.1 per cent were found to be Covid-19 positive.

“Maybe for asymptomatic cases the quantity of virus in the body is still low and may not infect.

“But it has been found that one or two days before they displayed symptoms, the level of virus residing in their body was high and can infect. So, those showing symptoms are encouraged to immediately come for tests to determine if they are Covid-19 positive,” he added.

On the situation of clusters in Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO) areas, he said Pusat Bandar Utara and the Kuala Lumpur Whole Market area in Selayang had recorded 21 new positive cases, bringing the total there to 160.

For the EMCO localities at Selangor Mansion and Malayan Mansion in Kuala Lumpur, they reported two cases and one case respectively to bring the total to 177 for Selangor Mansion and 13 for Malayan Mansion, he said.

Dr Noor Hisham said five clusters were still reporting new positive cases. - Bernama