Sabah Mulls Lockdown After Xmas New Year Gatherings Cause Surge In Infections

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State minister Masidi Manjun says Sabah may have to ban interstate travel, including flights in and out of the state, if situation escalates. (Bernama pic)KOTA KINABALU: Sabah could go into full-scale movement control order (MCO) or lockdown after a spike in Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the new year.
Local Government and Housing Minister Masidi Manjun said the authorities may have no choice if the numbers continue to rise in the state.
He added that Sabah may even have to ban interstate travel, including flights in and out of the state, if the situation escalated.
Masidi, who is Sabah’s official Covid-19 spokesman, said the trend in the last seven days before the new year saw some reduction in cases, with 157 cases the lowest and 299 being the highest, with an average of 232 cases a day.
However, since the new year, the numbers have steadily climbed from Jan 1 at 254 cases, Jan 2 (259), Jan 3 (316), Jan 4 (303), Jan 5 (383) and 405 cases recorded in the last 24 hours.
“While there was some relief the trend was going down at the end of last year, now we have no more green zone districts. As a matter of fact, we now have 19 red zone districts,” he said during his Covid-19 briefing today.
“We might have allowed complacency to creep into our compliance with the SOPs, so once again I appeal to the people.
“If the cases become worse, and I’m sure the health authorities are watching, we may have no choice but to go back to the MCO. We want to avoid that, help us reduce the numbers.”
Masidi said the government is worried over the lack of compliance to the SOPs by the people in all districts.
“To be honest, I’m a bit concerned because the statistics may to a certain extent rise in the next few days. By then the symptoms for those who had a nice time during the new year party and became infected will appear,” he said.
He pointed out almost 60% of the 405 cases recorded today were detected from close contact screenings.
“The significance is that this means there is an increase in community infections, people are more exposed to the virus out there. The community infection is becoming a new threat to us.
“This is the trend we’ve been seeing the past one week, which are infections from clusters related to Christmas and New Year gatherings,” Masidi said, urging people to limit social gatherings.
“We also need to limit the number of people we meet, more so if we don’t know them,” Masidi said.
On the coming Chinese New Year celebrations, he said the government will need to re-assess social activities if infections have not gone down.
“Obviously, we want to allow some freedom but I can tell you we are looking into all options and if the need arises, the first thing to be reviewed is the socialising.”
Earlier, Masidi shared the staggering statistics on infections involving children, with 5,142 children below the age of 12 found to be positive for the virus last year.
Of that number, 2,152 children are under the age of five while 707 are babies under one. Four children succumbed to Covid-19 in Sabah last year, two of them aged below one.
He added the state recorded a total of 112 clusters last year, with 49 of those still active now while the rest have ended.
For the record, Sabah has a cumulative infection of 38,960 cases as of now, with 2,310 still receiving treatment at hospitals or low-risk treatment centres. Sixty patients are in intensive care units, of which 19 require respiratory assistance.
On another note, Masidi said no other state Cabinet members had to go for tests or placed under quarantine after Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan tested positive for the virus recently.
He said it is believed Jeffrey contracted the virus when he returned to his Keningau parliamentary constituency over the festive period. - FMT

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