Source of latest spike in infection cases still unknown — Director

KUCHING: The source of Covid19 infection for the latest spike in cases has not yet been identified, said State Health director Dr Chin Zin Hing.

He said that contact tracing and tracking was carried out as soon as the cases emerged but so far, they have not been able to identify a single source of infection.

“We are trying to gather as much information as possible. Let’s take the Sentosa cluster for example. We are trying to do the antibody tests for all the people there so we can gather as much information as possible.

“As we gather more information, hopefully we can identify the source of infection. But we will continue to carry out contact tracing and whatever measures necessary that need to be done to control the transmission,” he said in a press conference giving the daily Covid-19 update here yesterday.

Dr Chin added that in the case of the Sentosa cluster, surveillance was being carried out in areas that could have been frequented by the cases from the cluster.

“We actually have planned and are doing surveillance for the places such as the market and eateries where it is possible the cases could have frequented. We will do random sampling and take samples during our investigation and from there, we will see the result,” he said.

Meanwhile, Uggah noted that, in general, most of the cases detected in the state were imported cases.

“There have been a few cases where they tested negatively in KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and then they come for quarantine here and were found to be positive.

“There have also been a few cases detected from home quarantine, and that is why we have assigned the military and police because one of the possible sources of imported cases are ‘jalan tikus’ (illegal pathways) so we want to tighten our border control,” Uggah said.

When asked if the fear of imported cases was the reason for the reduction of flights in Sarawak, Uggah said that reducing the number of flights was the state’s new standard operating procedure from Aug 1 till Aug 14.

“Those coming in from peninsula, Labuan and Sabah will be quarantined and swabbed within two days. If the test comes back negative, then we will release them.

“If we don’t reduce the flights, we may not be able to cope with the volume of traffic coming in,” he said.

He noted that reducing the number of flights into Sarawak would also enable the state to balance its capability in handling and managing Covid-19, especially since some hotels were taking in guests already.

“Some hotels have started business and taking in guests already, so I don’t think they want to accept persons under surveillance or persons under investigation cases.

“However, we also don’t want a situation where we let people entering Sarawak to go without being quarantined, because that could lead to other issues later on,” Uggah stressed.