SIX members of a Kuching family were the latest Covid-19 positive cases detected in Sarawak’s “kluster besi” (Iron cluster), said the state disaster management committee.

The six, detected from the ongoing active case detection (ACD) screening by the Health Department on people who are considered to have come in ‘close contact’ with infected people, including the index case of the cluster, bring the number of infected people in the cluster to 11.

They were all Sarawakians and the disaster committee only gave their relationship as “parents, siblings and nieces” to two of the positive victims in the cluster.

As at noon today, 301 people working at an iron fabrication factory in the industrial area Demak Laut on the outskirts of the city, and the workers and their families living in the company-provided dormitory, have been screened for the virus, the disaster committee added.

It said 284 were negative for the virus while another six are awaiting their test results.

Besides the six detected in Kuching, health authorities in the state today also detected another two cases in Miri to bring the number of people infected to 1,053.

The virus has also killed 19 people in the state to date.

The disaster committee reported that one of the Miri cases was a male university student returning home from Kuala Lumpur while the other is the younger sister of a positive case detected earlier.

The disaster committee said all the eight victims detected today showed no symptoms of the virus. – November 19, 2020.