THE detection of two Covid-19 cases among contract workers at two construction sites triggered massive multi-agency raids on the worksites in Kuching late yesterday.

The Sarawak General Hospital extension project site was raided along with the site of the old  National Institute of Public Administration building.

The state disaster management committee said today the raids were to facilitate contact tracing.

However, the participation of the police and Immigration Department in the raids suggested the purpose was also to round up illegal foreign workers.

The two cases of infection that surfaced at the worksites were Indonesians.

Some 150 police and immigration officers took part in the swoop. Others in the party were from the disaster management committee, state Health Department and Construction Industry Development Board..

The management committee said 271 workers, 81 of them from the SGH work site, were rounded up for virus tests.

Twenty-five of them, suspected of sneaking into the state to seek work, were arrested.

The two cases that sparked the clampdown tested positive on Wednesday when their employer sent them to a private hospital for the mandatory Covid-19 screening prior to applying for their work permits.

A subsequent investigation by the Health Department found that the two had illegally entered the state last Monday via the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.

Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah said the two men therefore did not observe the compulsory 14-day quarantine for all visitors to the state.

Uggah said since the two did not have a history of travelling elsewhere, the source of infection in the case was their home country.

They are warded at the SGH for isolation and treatment.

Earlier this week, Deputy Chief Minister II James Masing said the state’s borders with Kalimantan and Sabah had been sealed to prevent the spread of the virus. – October 16, 2020.