5,565 new cases, 6 deaths, two clusters in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah broke the record again, registering 5,565 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours with six deaths.

However, 5,542 patients or 99.59 per cent are in Categories 1 and 2 with mild symptoms, six in Category 3, two in Category 4 and five in Category 5.

Sabah Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun also said that the deaths were reported in Tawau (1), Tuaran (1), Semporna (1), Penampang (1), Kota Belud (1) and Papar (1).

Meanwhile, two educational institution clusters were recorded in the state, namely Kluster Kampung Lampada in Kota Marudu and Kluster Bukit Langsat in Keningau.

“From the total number on Friday, 62.43 per cent or 3,474 cases were found from community or sporadic infections.

“Infections in the community (sporadic) commonly unknown cause of infection or where the infection occurs are categorized as symptomatic cases.

“High cases of sporadic infection are a clear sign that the virus has spread throughout the community and is no longer concentrated in certain localities,” he said.

Kluster Kampung Lampada involved a staff of SK Lampada in Kota Marudu that was detected through symptomatic screening on Feb 15. Close contact screenings found 24 new cases.

As for Kluster Bukit Langsat, the index case is a 21-year-old student of a teacher training institution who was detected positive with Covid-19 on Feb 10. Close contact screening added 24 new cases.

All the positive patients have been given proper treatment and isolated.

From the 5,565 cases on Friday, 247 were children below five year old.

Children below five are still not eligible for Covid-19 vaccines.

The number of unvaccinated children aged between 5-11 found positive were 390 and unvaccinated above 11 years old were 335.

As of Feb 17, only 17,391 children or 4.23 per cent were vaccinated with first dose in the state.