Govt to hand out 2 million face masks starting tomorrow — Uggah

KUCHING: The distribution of two million face masks to Sarawakians under a state initiative against the Covid19 pandemic is expected to begin this Friday, said Sarawak Disaster Management Committee chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah. He told a press conference yesterday that the committee has decided to allocate six face masks to each household in Covid-19 red zones, which have more than 40 positive cases, and four for those in yellow zones, which have less than 40 cases, and green zones where there are no cases. “We know this is not sufficient but at least we can supplement (what the people might have) because it is not easy to get the masks. And we hope to start distributing, especially in the red zone, this Friday,” he said. The deputy chief minister added the masks were now being packed and would be distributed by his committee with the assistance of the divisional and district disaster management committees. On personal protective equipment (PPE) that the state had bought from China, he said they were brought in by MASkargo on April 9 and have been distributed to 33 health facilities throughout the state, with three more hospitals to receive theirs as soon as possible. “I am happy to say we have sufficient supply for two months. We are really concerned about the supply of PPE and we encourage local companies to produce PPE as well,” he said. Meanwhile, Uggah announced that the committee has decided to allow maintenance works on telecommunications towers to resume. “We are also allowing Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to open internet centres in the green zones. We will announce what are the green zones tomorrow (today),” he said.