GEORGE TOWN: About 70 per cent of positive Covid-19 cases in Penang originated from workplace clusters, particularly the industry cluster, the state legislative assembly was told today.
State Health Committee chairman Dr Norlela Ariffin (PKR-Penanti) said the surge in cases became obvious when the country entered the Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0 and when Penang eased into Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) in early July.
She said from the total 8,668 positive Covid-19 cases reported between June 1 and July 14 this year, some 6,222 originated from workplaces, particularly the industry cluster.
"Based on investigations by state health authorities, factories and industries are the biggest cause of Covid-19 cases in the state. This is due to the placement of foreign workers from more than 10 factories in one hostel.
"Besides that, the increase in cases is also due to poor living conditions, which often exceeded the capacity limit," she said during the question and answer session this morning.
There were at least 14 questions by the state assemblymen on the Covid-19 pandemic in the state, which took Norlela 90-minutes to answer more than half of them.
Elaborating, Norlela said since the beginning of this year until last Saturday (Aug 28), a total 246 factories statewide had been ordered to close due to Covid-19 cases.
Of the total, 135 factories were located in the Seberang Prai Tengah (SPT) district, southwest (47 factories), Seberang Prai Selatan (SPS) (29 factories), Seberang Prai Utara (SPU) (27 factories) and northeast district (eight factories).
Only 17 factories were ordered to close between March and December last year - 15 in the southwest district and one each in the SPT and SPS districts.
In a related development, Norlela said Covid-19 cases also surged after more economic and social activities were allowed to operate under Phase Two of the NRP, especially in the marketplace, construction sites and business premises.
"Community infections also resulted in Covid-19 cases to rise beyond control besides the issue of weaknesses in standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance," she added.
Norlela also revealed that there were seven Covid-19 cases from the Delta variant as of Aug 12.
However, her revelations did not go down well with M. Satees (DAP- Bagan Dalam) when he claimed that there were actually 31 Covid-19 cases from the Delta variant as of last Sunday (Aug 29).
"We are talking about a serious health crisis here and we need up-to-date information in our fight against the pandemic. There are 31 Covid-19 cases of Delta variant in the state, the second highest after Sarawak.
"This is worrying and the fatality rate of the Delta variant is also high," he added.
State legislative assembly speaker Datuk Law Choo Kiang then ruled that there was no issue for Norlela to provide the assemblymen with the latest updated information. - NST
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