THE dormitory of a secondary school in rural Lubok Antu district, about 180km from Kuching, is the latest Covid-19 cluster reported in Sarawak.

Of the 79 teachers and students screened for the virus in the Jalan Batu Kaya cluster, 21 were positive for Covid-19, the state disaster management committee stated in its daily update on the pandemic.

The index case is a 17 year-old male student.

The disaster committee said the student took a test last Tuesday and he was confirmed to have the virus that killed two more people on Wednesday bringing the state’s death toll from the pandemic to 1,636.

The 17-year-old student was the 272,141st Covid-19 victim reported since the outbreak in 2020.

The disaster committee said the students’ dormitory has been turned into their quarantine centre.

The Jalan Batu Kaya cluster brings the number of active clusters in the state to six.

Sarawak’s two deaths reported today were an 89 year-old Sibu woman and a 78 year-old Limbang woman.

Both were reported to have very low immunity to fight off the viral infection with the Sibu woman suffering from a chronic lung infection and a heart problem.

The Limbang woman had hypertension and dyslipidemia.

There were 1,745 new cases reported in the state today, slightly lower than the 1,963 cases reported yesterday.

Of the number, 22 were in the “serious” clinical category, one in category three (with lung infections), 18 in category four (with lung infections and requiring oxygen to breathe) and three in category five (with lung infections and requiring a ventilator to assist in the breathing).

According to the Ministry of Health statistics, only 11 Covid-19 patients in the state, or a mere 0.1% of the total number of cases, required ventilation. – March 11, 2022.