KUCHING: The status of Lawas district has changed from green to yellow after one new Covid-19 locally transmitted case was reported yesterday (Sept 26), bringing the total number of positive cases in the state to 704.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), in a statement, said the new case was a healthcare worker from the Sarawak State Health Department who had undergone a Covid-19 screening test before joining the Public Health Assistance Team in Sabah to assist in tackling the spread of the Covid-19 there.
They said the case underwent the Covid-19 screening at a government health clinic on Sept 20. Samples for the test were sent to Kota Kinabalu Public Health Laboratory, Sabah on the same day and the test results for the rT-PCR test on Sept 25 showed that it was positive.
SDMC said the case had a fever and cough on Sept 1 and 2 and was referred to Miri Hospital for further treatment. Preliminary investigation shows that the case has no history of travelling abroad but had visited Kota Kinabalu last July 26 on personal matters and only spent a night at an apartment there.
They said preliminary investigations also showed that the case may be a case of local infection. However, the case is still under further investigation and contact tracing is being carried out.
Kuching district remains a yellow zone as one case was reported in the last 14 days, while 38 districts in Sarawak still remain green.
No new recoveries and discharged from hospital were reported, meaning that the total number of recoveries and discharged cases remains at 681 or 96.73 percent of the total.
SDMC said four cases are still receiving treatment with one each at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), Bintulu Hospital, Miri Hospital and Sungai Buloh Hospital.
While there is no Covid-19 case being treated at any intensive care unit (ICU), there was one reported case in Sandakan, Sabah that is currently receiving treatment at Bintulu Hospital.
There were four new persons under investigation (PUI) cases reported and none are awaiting laboratory test results.
On the number of persons under surveillance (PUS), 28 have been checked into designated hotels to undergo quarantine, bringing the total number of PUS at 11 hotels to 613.
To date, 24,504 PUS have completed their quarantine.
