Mara college is Sabah’s 13th school cluster this year

 

The Mara Junior Science College Tun Mustapha in Tawau is Sabah’s 19th Covid-19 cluster, with the others being workplace or community clusters. (Facebook pic)

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah recorded its 13th school cluster this year, the latest being the Mara Science Junior College (MRSM) Tun Mustapha in Tawau.

This school is also Sabah’s 19th Covid-19 cluster, with the others being workplace or community clusters.

State local government and housing minister Masidi Manjun said the Jalan Apas Batu Lima cluster in Tawau was triggered by a Form Five student who tested positive on Jan 26.

A close contact screening confirmed that 11 of her friends were positive, including her hostel mates.

“All the students have been quarantined and given appropriate treatment,” he said in his early Covid-19 analysis report today.

“As a precautionary measure, other students identified as close contacts have been isolated, although they haven’t developed any symptoms,” he said, adding that the source of infection was still being probed.

Meanwhile, Masidi said new daily cases had increased to 490 in the last 24 hours, which was 123 more than yesterday.

This was also the first time the number of cases had surpassed 400 since Dec 2 when 427 cases were recorded.

He said Sandakan recorded the highest infections at 141, due to the large number of people detected through symptomatic screenings.

These were screenings either through self-test kits or conducted at medical institutions on people with symptoms.

“Out of the 490 detected today, 251 or 51.22% were from symptomatic screenings. This is the highest recorded from symptomatic screenings so far in Sabah.

“This means the virus has infiltrated far into the community,” Masidi said.

He said 482 cases today were patients with Category 1 and 2 symptoms, while four were in Category 3, three in Category 4 and one in Category 5. - FMT