Five Local Covid-19 Cases Reported, Kuching Loses Green Status

The source of infection for two new cases in Kuching is still under investigation.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported 13 new Covid-19 cases, comprising five local transmissions and eight imported infections.

The five new local transmissions included three Malaysians: two cases in Kuching, who had sought treatment at Sarawak General Hospital for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI); and one patient in Kuala Lumpur who was screened before returning to work.

Two of today’s local cases were foreigners detained at the Bukit Jalil immigration detention depot, who were screened before deportation to their country of origin.

The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) previously said on July 8 that Kuching’s Covid-19 status had turned from yellow to green after reporting zero coronavirus infections for the past 14 days.

According to SDMC today, the two new Sarawak patients — Patient 574 and Patient 575 — likely got infected locally as they did not have overseas travel history.

Contact tracing has been conducted for both cases, comprising close family members of Patient 574 and 30 contacts for Patient 575. The latter’s work of place has been closed temporarily for disinfection.

“The source of infection for the two cases is still under investigation,” said SDMC.

“With the two new reported cases, the status of the district of Kuching has turned from green to yellow. This means there is one ‘yellow’ district in Sarawak and 39 ‘green’ districts.”

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said separately that the MAEPS quarantine and low-risk Covid-19 treatment centre (PKRC) in Serdang, Selangor, has been closed, after the last patient was discharged today.

“As of 10 July 2020, the PKRC successfully 1,362 patients, where the majority are non-nationals (86 per cent) and 14 per cent are Malaysian citizens,” he said.

Dr Noor Hisham also said MOH would continue monitoring for Covid-19 outbreaks in the community, including detecting the coronavirus among SARI cases in hospitals.

As of today, 20,897 samples were taken, of which 79 tested positive for coronavirus (0.38 per cent).

“The positive rate of below 1 per cent means that infectivity is low in Malaysia. Although it’s low, the surveillance system in Malaysia is still able to track these cases because of good detection capacity and capability,” said the Health DG.

“Health workers in the public and private sector will continue to be given the latest training and information to trace and manage suspected Covid-19 cases, for example influenza-like illnesses and SARI, according to the latest guidelines based on the most recent information from international and local sources for use in Malaysia.”

The total number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia has hit 8,696, while there are 64 active infectious cases in treatment. The coronavirus death toll in the country remains at 121, with no new deaths reported today.

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