KUCHING: Four new Covid-19 positive cases were recorded in Sarawak today, bringing the tally further up to 759, the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) said.
Its chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said Kuching recorded three new cases, while one was recorded in Miri.
He revealed that the two import cases in Kuching involved undocumented immigrants (illegals) who entered the state via a rat trail last Monday.
Cases 756 and 757 are Indonesians from West Kalimantan who had undergone mandatory procedures for foreign workers.
“Both cases had undergone health check-ups and Covid-19 screening test at one of the private hospitals in Kuching. Both underwent the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rT-PCR) Covid-19 test on Oct 14 and the samples were found positive on the same day.
“Both were found entering into Sarawak illegally and therefore, did not undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days upon arriving into the state like other visitors from abroad.
“Based on the history of travel, both cases have already been infected while still in their home country of Kalimantan, Indonesia before arriving to Sarawak on Oct 12. Both cases have been admitted to Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) for further treatment.
“Further investigations into this case are still underway as well as contact tracing,” Uggah said during his daily Covid-19 update press conference here today.
Uggah added that case 759 is a close contact of case 752, which was classified as local transmission.
“The case is a close family member of case 752. The case, who resides in Kuching, had visited case 752 who was still in quarantine period at home in Kota Samarahan.
“On Oct 13, the case was attended to by health officers via contact tracing and underwent the rT-PCR test. The case tested negative on Oct 14 and admitted to SGH for further treatment.
“As of yesterday (14 Oct) at 12 noon, six individuals have been screened for Covid-19 and two had been tested positive while the other four were negative,” he said.
In Miri, Uggah said case 758 involved a local who had travel from a red zone state — Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
“The case, who works at an oil and gas shipment company in Sabah, was on the ship since Sept 3 before signing off on Oct 10.
“The case stopped in Labuan from Kota Kinabalu before returning to Miri Airport on Oct 10 and underwent quarantine upon arriving into the state.
“On Oct 13, the case took the rT-PCR test. The case was tested positive on Oct 14 and admitted to Hospital Miri on the same day.
“Upon investigation, the case was found having a sore throat since Oct 8. This meant that the case was already infected while on the ship which landed in Sabah. A full swing contact tracing is still being carried out.” he added.
There were three recovery and discharged cases from hospital today — two discharged from Miri Hospital and one from Sibu Hospital — bringing the total of recovery cases statewide to 694 or 91.44 percent.
A total of 46 cases are still receiving treatment and isolated in hospitals with 28 in SGH, eight in Miri, seven in Bintulu and three in Sibu.
Meanwhile, the state recorded five new persons-under-investigation (PUI) cases and none awaiting lab results.
