Review decision to pair returning students in same hotel room — Rep
road and rural roads linking the rural areas to urban areas. The downtime shouldn’t be used to just linger doing nothing. When used effectively by upgrading these infrastructure, it actually helps in providing employment to locals and also boosting the economy.”
Lai urged Mirians to make good use of the internet, learn to transform their businesses from offline to online as the MCO had actually boosted online shopping.
“Miri has been chosen as the pilot Smart City project. The term ‘Smart City’, I believe, partly means upgrading the internet. Instead of si ing doing nothing, it would be good to make good use of the time learning to upgrade and transform your businesses, which would bring more benefit than you could imagine,” said Lai.
The former mayor also hoped that all Mirians could continue to give their full support in protecting and ensuring Miri to be free of Covid-19 positive cases as well as work towards thriving Miri to become one of the best cities in the country.
SIBU: The state government should review its decision to pair returning students in the same hotel room during their quarantine period, said Bukit Assek assemblywoman Irene Chang.
She said the practice is medically undesirable as healthy students are at risk of becoming infected if the person they are paired with is an asymptomatic spreader.
“I have received many complaints on this ma er. The World Health Organisation has stated that many people who are infected with Covid-19 may only experience mild symptoms and do not feel ill at all, yet may still be infectious.
“The state’s practice of pairing students in a room continuously for a few days is therefore pu ing each one of them at a very high risk of being exposed to an asymptomatic spreader,” she said in a statement yesterday.
Chang was referring to remarks made by State Disaster Management Commi ee chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah, who on Monday said the commi ee had decided to place two students per hotel room due to a shortage of rooms in Sarawak to cater to the large number of students returning from Peninsular Malaysia, Labuan and Sabah.
Uggah explained that the decision was made following advice from medical experts who gave the green light for two students to be quarantined in the same room.
“If one of them happens to be positive later, then we only will detect the roommate as close contact,” he was quoted as saying.
Chang also took issue with the decision to allow students who test negative on the second day of their hotel stay, to return home to continue the remainder of their 14-day compulsory quarantine.
“Since the incubation period for the virus may be as long as 14 days, the students should not be allowed to go back home as early as on the third day when their (first test) result is negative.
“If any of these students were infected on the plane flight home, surely it is highly possible that on the second day of their hotel stay, the swab done on them may not have picked up the virus yet.
“The result would therefore be a false negative but the student is allowed to go home and ends up pu ing his family members at high risk of being exposed to the virus,” she said.
Chang therefore called on the state government to urgently review its current standard operating procedure on returning students so as not to jeopardise all the gains made in tackling the pandemic thus far.