THE Kota Sentosa township in Sarawak will be locked down following an outbreak of Covid-19 in Sentosa Hospital.

In a statement today, the state disaster management committee (SDMC) declared the township and its vicinities an “active case detection area” (ACD), but did not say when the lockdown will come into force.

The statement came after the committee convened for an emergency meeting chaired by Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg late this afternoon.

A lockdown, such as was enforced in two residential areas in Samarahan in April, means nobody will be allowed to leave or enter the area.

SDMC chairman Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah had explained then that the cordon was “to restrict, not stop, the movement of people”.

He said confinement of the residents would make ease contact tracing and curb transmission.

Residents could go out and buy food at the shops within the area in lockdown and no further.

The SMDC said the decision to cordon off Kota Sentosa was a step that had to taken at once to curb the outbreak.

Today, the state reported one new virus – from the Sentosa cluster – and one death from infection.

There are now 21 people infected in the Sentosa Hospital.

SDMC said today’s meeting also discussed reinstating the inter-district travel ban, reducing flights into the state and cutting back business hours.

It said information on these measures would be announced after the details were ironed out

Meanwhile, all Malaysians arriving in the state on August 1-14 from the peninsula, Sabah and Labuan would be quarantined for 14 days in a hotel. They will undergo a swab test on the second day and released if the results come back negative.

The SDMC has also advised Politeknik Kuching to further defer the start of its academic year.

Classes were to have started in June but were pushed back to August 3 due to the recovery movement control order (RMCO) still being in effect..

Registration for the first semester, of 825 students, was to have been from August 3 to 7.

SDMC disputed the Health Ministry’s statement yesterday that Kuching was a red zone.

It reiterated Kuching was still a yellow zone area as it was three cases shy of 40.

This was because only cases of local transmission were counted and they numbered 38 in Kuching, the 14 more being imported cases.

A red zone is an area with more than 40 reported cases in 14 days.

Neighbouring Samarahan has 11 cases of local transmission and two imports, Lundu one local and one imported infection, and Bau one local transmission.

Bintulu has four imported cases. – July 26, 2020.