SARAWAK is allowing farmers, livestock breeders and fishermen to continue with their daily work in a relaxation of the movement control order implemented to fight the Covid-19 outbreak.

The state Disaster Management Committee, in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg today, also decided that these agricultural producers can sell their products themselves at places designated by the local council. 

They will have to operate from 7am to 7pm like other businesses.

These decisions were made to ensure continuous and sufficient food supply, Abang Johari told a press conference after the meeting.

He said that the spread of Covid-19 in the state had “stabilised”, which he defined as a downward trend of the number of new infections daily since the MCO began on March 18. Since March 22, when they were eight cases, it had gone down to four new cases yesterday and today.

As of today, the total number of infections in Sarawak stands at 95.

Four new positive cases were detected in the state today, in Kuching, Sibu and Miri.

The state also recorded 48 new Person Under Investigation (PUI) cases, which includes 20 Indonesian oil palm plantation workers who showed early symptoms of the infection.

The migrant workers, from the Sarawak Land Custody and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) plantation at Pakit Undop, Sri Aman, were transferred to a quarantine centre in Kota Samarahan, 100km away, by bus at 10pm yesterday.

Initial investigations found that one of the workers had entered Sarawak via the Tebedu CIQ on March 12.

To date, Sarawak has recorded five deaths since the first fatal case was reported on March 17. – March 26, 2020.