HOTEL QUARANTINE
KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas has asserted that there is no double standard with regard to who has to undergo hotel quarantine upon arriving in Sarawak.
Responding to a question during the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) Covid-19 daily update press conference on Tuesday (July 14), he refuted claims on social media that SDMC was giving preferential treatment to children of well-connected individuals and allowing them to skip the quarantine process upon their arrival in the state.
“The son of the Minister of Local Government and Housing Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian is now undergoing quarantine at Riverside Hotel. This is a very serious matter and we want to ensure that everyone follows our standard operating procedure (SOP),” he said.
He explained that there had been earlier cases whereby Sarawakians had returned from overseas and been tested negative at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), and were then found to be positive when tested during their hotel quarantine in Sarawak.
“SDMC is not going to take chances. Just imagine if we had just let these individuals go and they were found to be positive – the effects would be disastrous,” he said.
He urged the public not to spread fake news, warning that the authorities would investigate and take action against such irresponsible individuals.
Meanwhile, on the Covid-19 cases reported over the past few days, he said that the source of local transmission had not been identified yet.
“That is why we had to create new clusters in Sarawak, namely the Kidurong cluster, Kuching construction site cluster, and Kuching engineering firm cluster, and we are actively doing contact tracing,” said Uggah, who is also SDMC chairman, adding that a few hundred contacts had been traced.
He said that the committee was currently considering these cases as community-based infections, therefore urging the public to stay vigilant and comply with all SOPs.
On another matter, when asked if body temperature had to be checked at each individual store in shopping malls, he said that it was to the store owner. “We do not stop the store owner from checking customers’ temperature again at their shop.”
He said that at the main entrance of the shopping mall, contact details and temperature would have to be taken.
