Sabah’s partial lockdown may be extended again

 

Preparations being made for swab tests at Sandakan prison earlier this year. (Facebook pic)

KOTA KINABALU: After a second day of record-high Covid-19 infections, a state minister says the Sabah government is to recommend an extension of the statewide partial lockdown due to end on Nov 9.

Local Government and Housing Minister Masidi Manjun said the state government will submit its recommendation to the National Security Council for another extension to the conditional movement control order (CMCO). The CMCO came into force on Oct 13 and was further extended to Nov 9.

He said the areas that are not of the source of infection or new cases would probably need SOPs that are more relaxed so the people can live their lives as normal as possible.

“But we hope, subject to approval, some of the SOPs can be reviewed if the CMCO is extended. There have been applications from various sectors of the community (to relax the SOPs).”

Masidi, who is the state’s official Covid-19 spokesman, said the state understood that while the health department is fighting this menace, some sectors of the society which are low risk should be allowed more freedom.

“Those (areas) that are not really the source of infection or new cases would probably need a bit more relaxed SOPs so that they can try to live their lives as normal as possible.

“We are looking at specific areas or industries that are contributing high numbers and that is where stricter SOPs need to be implemented,” he said, adding the state has relaxed rules in certain industries recently.

The health ministry today reported a new record high of 1,755 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, with 1,199 infections taking place in Sabah. Most of these were from the prison and detention centre clusters.

Sabah now has 19,282 cumulative cases, with 3,199 cases still active. A total of 143 patients have died from the virus in the state since March.

Masidi said, however, the health department was on the right track in managing the pandemic in Sabah despite the consistently high numbers and surfacing of new clusters daily.

“Obviously we are concerned about the high numbers, as day in and day out, the numbers are quite high.

“But we should see it in the entire perspective. The high numbers are due to more testing on the ground daily and this resulted in more cases.

“Secondly, the numbers are also contributed by specific places such as the prison and temporary detention centre (clusters),” he said.

Masidi said as these places are under close watch and fully guarded, no one is able to leave and risk infecting others. “The possibility of infecting the community is practically nil.”

On the Batu Sapi parliamentary by-election, he said the Election Commission (EC) would have learned from the lessons in the previous state election and would come up with more stringent and effective SOPs to minimise the risk of infections.

“The by-election can’t be avoided as the EC said this is an obligation under the constitution” he said. - FMT