Uggah: SDMC to review relaxed RMCO SOP
KUCHING: The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee will review the standard operating procedures ( SOP) which have been relaxed under the Covid- 19 recovery movement control order (RMCO), said its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
He pointed out that although the RMCO SOP allowed some social activities to be conducted, there have been Covid- 19 cases in Sarawak that had spread because of these activities.
“Under RMCO there has been some relaxation, for example family karaoke places were allowed to operate. But we discovered that it was from there one of the Covid- 19 cases in the state spread.
“So we are going to review SOP for social activities. We will inform the National Security Council ( NSC) a lot of these ( Covid- 19 cases) spread from social activities that have been relaxed,” he told a press conference after chairing the SDMC meeting yesterday.
“That’s why in Sabah they have a Christmas cluster. Looks like Sarawak also we have a sort of Christmas cluster as well in Bintangor, where a person came back from Johor to his longhouse and quarantined, and celebrated Christmas there.”
In this respect, Uggah, who is a deputy chief minister, urged village heads to be vigilant and to be firm with people who violated Covid- 19 SOP as the virus has spread to the rural areas.
He said the rural folk should also do their part to break the Covid- 19 chain of infection, revealing that during the holiday season he had witnessed in social media several blatant violations of the SOP.
“I see in my WhatsApp somebody celebrating at a longhouse, not a single person there was wearing face masks and ( practising) social distancing.
“So here I request community leaders in Sarawak to take note of this. When we organise activities we must not forget that Covid-19 is still in Malaysia and Sarawak, and no place is exempted from its spread,” he said.
“Today we have two cases in longhouses, and we are still doing contact tracing to find the source of their infection. So please be cautious and don’t be complacent,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sarawak health director Dr Chin Zin Hing also urged Sarawakians to always comply with the SOP to avoid getting infected because if the number of cases in Sarawak continues to rise, it would overwhelm the healthcare system.
“In Sarawak we don’t have the luxury of a lot of beds for Covid19 patients, not to mention ICU patients needing ventilations. So like what Uggah had mentioned, we need to keep Sarawak safe to keep the number of cases as low as possible so that we ( Health Department) can manage,” he said.
Dr Chin said that currently Sarawak has a capacity of 900 beds for Covid- 19 patients, and 75 intensive care unit beds.
If the number of new cases exceeded the number of available beds, he said it could a strain on the healthcare system in Sarawak, affecting the health services to other patients with other illnesses.
“We still have to provide services to normal patients besides Covid- 19. So we need to be very careful.
“If we don’t protect ourselves and not enough beds, then we will have to make difficult choices — who to be admitted, who to be ventilated... that is a difficult situation,” he said.