DG Hisham Says Visited Sabah End August, Deputy DG And PM’s Advisor Went Recently

Sabah recorded zero new Covid-19 cases almost every day in the last two weeks of August, as the coronavirus surge hit the state in October after its election.

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today that he visited Sabah in end August, while his deputy and the prime minister’s special advisor on public health went in recent weeks.

Sabah’s surge of Covid-19 cases happened in October, after its September state election, with the country’s poorest state recording zero new infections almost every day in the last two weeks of August, save for one case each on August 16 and August 22.

“In the Ministry of Health (MOH), we have made a specific plan for Sabah and I myself have gone down to the field, which was the end of August, and we saw the management which was the preparation for the elections,” Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said during his daily press conference on Malaysia’s Covid-19 cases today.

“I have also instructed my deputy Dr Chong Chee Keong to go down last week and Dr Jemilah has also gone down two weeks ago to see to the actions, which is the management of Covid-19 and the issues that arose in Sabah,” he added, referring to Dr Jemilah Mahmood, the special advisor on public health to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

Dr Noor Hisham said there is no issue of him being scared of dying if he goes down to Sabah.

“We, as Muslims, we accept death anywhere it happens, not going to the ground or not,” Dr Noor Hisham said.

“We can have differences of opinion, but what we are sure of is that what is being implemented is to break the chain of Covid-19 infection so that we can save the country from an increasing number of cases and the death rate.”

Earlier today, Bintulu MP Tiong King Sing at the Dewan Rakyat criticised the Health DG for not visiting Sabah personally to look into issues, have discussions, and give moral support to the frontliners.

He asked if the DG was scared of dying if he were to go down to Sabah. Tiong even asked why Dr Noor Hisham did not send his deputies to Sabah.

Sabah has been continuously reporting three-digit Covid-19 cases daily since October, after its state election campaign from September 12 till September 26.

CodeBlue previously reported on how Covid-19 cases in Sabah took a long period of time to double back in August, almost a month as compared to the tail-end of the election when the doubling rate sped up.

Since then, medical frontliners have described the situation in Sabah as “Ground Zero” with cases everywhere and unlinked, amid an overwhelming number of ill patients and hospitals having to open new Covid-19 wards every week.

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